


Accretion

by Hakanaki



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Original Character(s), Wash's Anger Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 23:33:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8554045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hakanaki/pseuds/Hakanaki
Summary: accretion (n.) - growth or increase in size by gradual external addition, fusion, or inclusion.an increase in the mass of a celestial object by its gravitational capture of surrounding interstellar material.--There are very few constants in Agent Washington's life, but for the stars.





	1. Nebula

_ nebula _ **__ ** _(n.)_ _—_ _a mass of dust or gas that can be seen in the night sky, often appearing very bright;  
a bright area in the night sky caused by a large cloud of stars that are far away_

 

 __ ****1** **

The air is bitter against his skin and he can’t drown out the screaming from inside the house. His right cheek throbs, a warm, steady thrum of his heart against the crisp, dry winter. It’s cold in the center, where the cut is still dribbling blood down his face, mixing with the last of the tears and the snot. When he goes to wipe it away, a larger, warmer hand gently grips his wrist and tugs his hand away. 

“Davie, stop touching it,” a voice tells him, firmly but not unkindly. “Anna will be back with the first aid kit in a minute.”

“It _hurts_ , Cassie,” he mumbles. He turns in her lap and presses his uninjured, cold cheek against her chest, shivering in his thin pajamas. Cassie wraps herself around him as much as she can, but there’s only so warm you can get when you hastily escape outside in the middle of the night during winter. Davie manages to sit still only for a few minutes before he starts fidgeting again—his face is _so itchy_. When Cassie grabs his hand for the third time to stop his unconscious scratching, she sighs.

“Get up,” she says, shoving his small body gently off of her lap. Davie whines quietly at her, unable to stop himself. It’s cold, it’s late, Anna isn’t back yet, and the voices in the house have barely started what he hopes will be their final crescendo.

“We’re going to look at the stars,” Cassie continues, tucking him against her side, gently but with purpose—this way, the hand that keeps wandering up to touch the deep cut on his cheek is trapped against her thigh.

Davie scowls, scuffing a foot against the wood of the porch. “Why? The stars are where the Covvies come from,” he says, voice alight with all the indoctrinated anger he can muster. 

Cassie chuckles and gives him an affectionate noogie. “Kiddo, _everything_  comes from out there—Covvies, humans, plants, animals, everything. Humans started out on Earth, you know, and that’s light years away.”

Davie mulls over this as they cross the scant distance to the edge of the porch and allows himself to peer out at the sky for a moment. It’s a clear night—rare on a mining colony like theirs—and the lack of light pollution around them means that the night sky unfolds before them in its full glory, billions and billions of tiny pinpricks against the darkness. It’s been a long time since Davie has seen the sky so clear and for a moment it takes his breath away. The cold and the itchy pain fade into the background until he’s aware of nothing but the warmth at his side and the glow of the night sky. 

After a moment, Cassie crouches down to Davie’s height and points at a cluster of stars he couldn’t have identified by himself. “See those? Those are the Pleiades. They’re some of the brightest stars in the universe. They’re pretty old, but not that old for stars,” she murmurs, eyes transfixed on the cosmic map before them.

“Older than humans?” he wonders, following her finger to the small cluster.

“Older than humans, Covvies, whatever,” Cassie responds. There’s a note in her voice, a confidence that lets Davie know this must be true.

“What about Earth?” he asks, continuing to look at the Pleiades, afraid to look away and lose them. “Where’s Earth?”

Cassie pauses for a long while to scan the sky. Davie watches her watch the stars, takes in how the starlight makes her freckles look as her face scrunches up in concentration. After a while, she gestures generally to a stretch of the Milky Way directly above them. “It’s in there somewhere, I think,”

“But _where?_ ” he presses, tilting his head back to frown at her. He is six years old, and in his world, Cassie should know everything.

Cassie hums a little and shuffles him in front of her. She rests her chin on his thin shoulder and points again. “It’s probably somewhere in that cluster. Do you see it?” 

He nods, feeling her hair tickle the uninjured side of his face. “Which _one _,__  though?” he asks, transfixed on the point in the sky she is pointing to. Earth is where humans came from, after all. He’s only ever seen pictures of it, and not many. The school doesn’t have that many books about Earth.

Cassie hums in contemplation before standing up fully and ruffling his hair. “Silly kid,” she teases. “Earth is just a planet, you know. You can’t really see it from here—it’s too small.”

Davie wants to ask more, suddenly needs to know more about this tiny place in the vast night sky that is the center of the human race, but there’s the sound of a door closing from the back of the house. Cassie puts herself between Davie and the noise and Davie lets her, because she is bigger than him and he often wonders if she’s invincible.

A pale face pinched with concern peeks around the side of the house, and Davie lets out a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Anna,” Cassie says, relieved. Some of the tension leaves her shoulders. “What took you so long?”

“I had to hide,” Anna replies, her voice tight. “They came into the kitchen just as I went to grab the kit, so I hid in the pantry.” She says it quietly, tiredly, in a way that most ten year olds shouldn’t know how to be. She shrugs off Cassie’s concerned hand on her shoulder and makes her way to Davie. “Is it still bleeding?” she asks, dabbing two fingers to the center of the wound incredulously.

Cassie crouches down again to peer at his Davie’s face while he winces away from Anna’s touch. “It’s slowed down a lot,” she notes.

The two faces staring down at him in concern are very different. Cassie is blonde and freckled like he is, her hair a long, unwieldy curtain that falls to her hips. Anna is paler, or at least seems so without any freckles to interrupt her complexion. Her hair is dark and short. Both of them have blue eyes—their mother’s eyes. Only Davie inherited their father’s gray.

Anna pokes at his chin to get a better look at his cheek. “It looks pretty deep, Cassie,” she says worriedly. “What should we do?”

Cassie shrugs, the tension snapping back into her body as she scowls. “Not much we can do. Patch it up. Keep it clean—God knows the last time that bastard cleaned his fucking wedding ring.” For the first time since they escaped out to the porch, there’s anger in her voice, cold and solid. Cassie’s anger is like an ice cube, Davie thinks.

Anna sighs and fishes out an alcohol wipe from the first aid kit. When she opens the package, the smell of antiseptic hits Davie’s nose and he can’t help the flinch, because that smell always means something already hurts and is about to hurt a lot more.

“Sorry, Davie,” Anna murmurs, pressing the cold wipe to the center of his cheek, which still throbs and itches. The sting makes him hiss and he screws his eyes shut against reflexive tears. He’s cried enough tonight and he’s tired of acting like a baby. Once Anna is sure the wound is clean, she wipes up the mess of dried blood and snot from the rest of his face with a wet wipe that doesn’t smell so strongly of ethanol.

Cassie roots around in the first aid kit next to her. “I gotta go buy more stuff,” she mutters to herself. “We’re getting low.” After a moment more of searching, she fishes out a medium sized square bandage and holds it up to Davie’s face experimentally. “This should work, but it’s the last one.”

Anna sighs. “Try not to pick at it this time, then, Davie,” she says. “At least until Cassie can go get more.”

“I won’t,” Davie promises, feeling somewhat subdued in the wake of his sisters’ seriousness.

“I just can’t believe he hit him that hard,” Anna says, voice high and strangled with emotion. Cassie wraps an arm around her and tucks her into her shoulder.

“It’s okay,” she soothes, and then pauses. “I mean, it’s not. None of this is fucking okay. None of this has _ever_  been okay. But…” She trails off, looks over at their brother pensively.

Davie takes that as his cue to turn back to the night sky. He doesn’t understand what happens inside of the house when his father comes home smelling like alcohol wipes. He doesn’t understand why his father is so angry all the time, why his mother gets so angry back, why the three of them so often get caught in the middle of it. He doesn’t want to understand that—it’s not nearly as interesting or as important to him as figuring out where planet Earth is at the moment. So, as his sisters speak in hushed tones behind him about the mess of broken pieces that is their family, he turns his attention back to the night sky.

He squints hard at the spot in the Milky Way that Cassie had indicated earlier. Earth wasn’t a star, of course, because people couldn’t live on stars. Or at least, he didn’t think so. But which star was the closest one to Earth? Which star was the closest to humanity? There were so many out there with so many possibilities. Any one of them would be a better place to live than here, he realizes. He wouldn’t mind going to any one of them, as long as Cassie and Anna and maybe Momma were there. A kernel of something starts to plant itself in the center of his mind, something like resolve, something like a—

“Davie?” 

He starts, turning away from the possibilities of the galaxy and back towards his sisters, back towards the house that is his current, dull reality. Anna smiles at him and takes his hand, squeezing it in comfort.

“It’s been a long night. But they’re done now,” she says simply. “So let’s warm up and get some sleep.”

Davie nods, feeling once again the sharp chill on the back of his neck, and follows his sisters through the back door into the now-silent house.

One day, he thinks, I won’t have to be here anymore. One day I can be somewhere out there.

The thought is a balm as he drifts off to sleep, cheek still throbbing dully beneath the bandage on his face.

 

****2** **

The funeral takes place in early spring, not long after his eighth birthday, when the sun is warm but the wind still carries the last vestiges of winter on its breath. The day is as incongruously beautiful as it can be on a smoke-choked mining colony. The flowers are starting to emerge from dewy buds and the grass is the bright green of new beginnings, but the clouds are thick and gray with the promise of a storm later.

As the ceremony winds to an end, his mother weeping and his sisters standing stoically beside him, he wonders what exactly he is supposed to feel. His mother sobs out her grief, but they are the same sobs she would heave after a drunken brawl with his father. She wraps shaking arms around herself as she weeps, but Davie knows exactly where each scar from the vase that shattered against her raised forearms lies. He clenches his hands to his sides and feels the skin stretch around his wrist, where the circular cigarette burn has only just faded into a scar, shockingly dark against his skin.

His cheek burns.

As his mother goes to pieces over the man that did nothing but hurt them, who drank himself into his early grave, Davie isn’t sure what he’s _supposed_  to be feeling, but he does know that he is angry. The anger pools in his clenched fists, travels up his arms like flame on gasoline and causes his shoulders to tremble. Next to him, Anna sends a concerned look his way, but when he looks at her, all he can see are the now-faded bruises on her ribs from the time she got caught in the fray trying to locate the first aid kit. They were purple at first and then yellow for ages, and he feels his shoulders bunch up towards his ears as the flames lick the back of his neck. They’re going to consume him; they’re going to burn everything else away and he has to get out before he’s engulfed entirely.

He jerks himself out of place, turns towards the exit of the funeral parlor room and stumbles until he’s running down the aisle, the small handful of people who’d cared about Daniel Gallagher nothing more than black blurs in his peripheral vision. He doesn’t dare look back, afraid that the rage boiling through him is leaving a tangible trail of smoke, afraid that seeing people watch him as he storms away from his father’s funeral will make the fire blaze into an inferno and that he will never make it back to himself alive.

He makes it to the back of the room, pushes open the doors, and keeps going until he’s pushed his way out of the building altogether. He comes to a stop on the dull, gray pavement and pants with his hands on his knees. It feels like he can’t catch his breath, like the anger has turned itself from a fiery entity into something else entirely, something that squeezes his chest and screams in his mind and maybe he didn’t run fast enough, maybe the flames spread too far up the back of his neck and killed him anyways because he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe he can’t breathe _hecan’tbreathe_ —

There are hands on his face, cold against the flame turned to smoke that feels like it’s writhing beneath his skin. He recoils away from them instinctively, flinches right into a wall he hadn’t realized was behind him. The impact shakes some of the smoke from his lungs and he manages a stuttered gasp. It feels like sucking air through a straw but it’s air all the same, cold and clean, and he keeps gasping for it. Each inhale comes a little steadier than the last, until finally the boiling sound in his ears fades away. He blinks once and the rest of the world comes back as well, the gray of the sidewalk and the sky, the green of the surrounding lawn, the gold of Cassie’s hair dangling in front of his nose. He sneezes once, explosively, and bats the offending lock of hair away, suddenly feeling very tired.

Cassie pauses in whatever it was she was saying, something in a low, soothing voice, and snorts. She ruffles his hair fondly before crouching down before him. She hasn’t grown much between sixteen and eighteen, but the last two years have been kind to Davie, who is no longer the smallest in his class. Like this, he now stands a whole head taller than her, and it still feels weird looking down to see her face.

“Are you okay?” she asks cautiously, placing her hands on his shoulders.

Davie nods slowly. “The fire got me,” he tells her absently, and shudders at the remembered heat. “I got mad and the fire got me.”

“You just had a panic attack,” Cassie tells him. “But you’re okay. Do you wanna tell me what happened?” Her voice is soft and slow, like she’s trying to soothe one of the feral cats that they see sometimes. Part of him doesn’t like it, doesn’t like being talked to like he’s some kind of creature, but the voice gives him something to focus on other than the last vestiges of flame and smoke flickering behind his eyes.

He draws a breath—it comes as easy as it ever has, now. “I got mad,” he repeats, “and the fire got me. On the inside.”

“Why were you mad?”

Davie shrugs and turns away from her, leaning a little more fully against the wall. It’s rough against his back and probably terrible for the fancy suit jacket he’s wearing. He doesn’t care. “I’unno,” he mumbles finally. “Just.” He pauses again, tries to find the words. Cassie squeezes his shoulders encouragingly, rubbing small circles. After a moment, he thinks his head is finally clear enough to say it right.

“Mom’s just… crying. She’s sad, you know? But,” he swallows, the words suddenly coming up like a deluge, sticking and then unsticking themselves in his throat. “But I’m _not _.__  I’m not sad at _all_ , and I don’t understand why _she_  is! Dad wasn’t so great,” he spits, beginning to shake again. “He wasn’t great _at all_.” He’s too tired to let the words out, to let the anger out again. He sags against the wall and squeezes his eyes shut against the sting of sudden tears. One slides down his cheek anyways, hot against his face. The last of the fire, for now.

Cassie stands up and brushes the tear away with her thumb before pulling him into an embrace. It’s awkward—they don’t often engage in casual physical affection. Touch in their family has always been either painful or medicinal to treat that pain. He can’t remember the last time Cassie has hugged him—or anybody—for seemingly no reason. He stands there for a while, passively accepting the embrace, before he brings up his own arms and clings to the back of her fancy mourning blouse. They stay like that for what could be minutes or hours—he doesn’t know.

“That’s okay,” Cassie finally says, pulling back a bit. “It’s okay to be angry. It’s also okay for Mom to be sad,” she adds, flicking his forehead so he’ll look at her. “You don’t need to understand why somebody is sad to let them be that way,” she tells him. Cassie has told him many things in his life, and all of them have been true so far. He decides to believe her now.

“What about you?” he asks. “Which are you?”

Cassie looks away, looks at where the sun has penetrated the cloud cover on its descent for the day, dying the horizon hues of pink and orange. She doesn’t say anything for a while, and Davie pulls out of the embrace, watching the sun set. He wants it to sink faster, he realizes. He wants this day to be over.

“I’m not either,” Cassie finally says, and Davie starts. He thought maybe she wasn’t going to answer him. “I’m not sad or mad. I got done being both of those things about Dad a long time ago,” she says. “I’m just tired.” She turns back towards her brother and looks him in the eye again. “I’m getting out of this town after I graduate. I’m gonna go to college. I’m gonna study the stars and get the hell off of this shitty planet.” 

The words hit him harder than they should. Cassie is ten years older than him. Part of him always knew that she wouldn’t stay here forever. He can’t help but feel betrayed anyways, and jealous, but he’s too tired to process these things. He simply nods, numb. “Can I come with you?” he asks, because he has to ask. He has to try.

Cassie laughs, but it’s not a joyful sound. Her laughter rarely is. “I wish, kiddo. But you gotta stay here. So Anna and Mom don’t get lonely.”

“Why would they be lonely if they were together?” he presses, starting to frown.

Cassie sighs. “Because they’d miss you, dummy. Not that they won’t miss me—hell, Anna _better_  miss me—but if both of us are gone, that’s too many people to miss at once.” She pauses and runs a hand through her hair, pushing it out of her eyes. Her hand twitches towards the pocket of her slacks and she gives Davie a sidelong glance before fishing out a pack of cigarettes. Their father’s brand. She lights one with practiced ease and exhales before speaking again.

“Don’t tell Mom.”

“I won’t,” Davie says sourly, and he can’t help the way his nose wrinkles at the smell or how he grabs his left wrist protectively.

They stand in silence for a while, as the sun finishes setting and the darkness sets in. Cassie crushes the remains of her cigarette under her boot when she hears motion from inside the building, signaling the end of the funeral.

“You’ll get out of here, too, someday,” she tells Davie. “You will. You just gotta stay here for now, okay?” And because Cassie has never lied to him, Davie knows that this, too, is true. ‘Someday’ just feels too far away to contemplate.

“Okay,” he says dully, watching her turn to head back inside. He doesn’t want to go back in there. He doesn’t want to see any of those people. He glances up at the sky, tries to see if any stars have peeked out from beyond the cloud cover.

The first raindrop of the storm plops against his nose.

 

****3** **

He feels the rage simmer under his skin constantly. It bubbles under his skin, causing his hands to shake and his vision to gray at the edges if he is not careful to control it. The fire scares him. It burns behind his eyes, under his fingernails, within his stomach. It wants out of him—wants to burn a path of destruction using his body as a vessel, and Davie doesn’t want it to do that. He doesn’t want to be like his father.

The months after the funeral are difficult. His mother gets a clerical job somewhere in the city, but she spends most of her time at home unresponsive. The job brings in much less money than their father’s mining work did, but Anna is good with numbers and Cassie is good at making things stretch, so although their meals are nowhere near exciting, there is enough to keep everyone fed. They take over most of the household duties. Davie tries to help where he can, but at eight years old, he can do little more than keep the house clean and boil the occasional egg.

There is something disjointed in their family life now, a looming-figure-shaped hole, and it’s hard for him to get used to. He can’t bring himself to let go of the apprehension every time he enters a room, finds himself checking that he isn’t walking right into a warpath at every doorway.

The burning inside of him continues to fester.

There is nothing for him to direct his rage towards. He’s never really had friends at school. He’d been the smallest in his class until this past year, when he finally shot up several inches. He’s never minded, content to spend his recess time in the meager school library reading books about Earth, about the stars, about space, about anything.

The librarian is a nice lady. She has a rock collection and she gives him snacks every so often with a secret smile and a whisper not to tell. Sometimes, she also slips him little sample packs of creams and ointments for the occasional bruise on his face or arm. In return, he brings her interesting pebbles he finds. Increasingly, the pebbles are broken from rocks he’s taken to slamming against the concrete in an attempt to quell the constant rage, but she doesn’t know that.

On his way to the library one day in late spring, he slips into the bathroom after lunch. As he finishes washing his hands, he hears someone come up to the sink next to him.

Davie has never really had friends at school, but he has had bullies. They’d teased him for his freckles, for the quality of his clothes, for the bruises he often came to school sporting, for anything they could find. They’d teased him for his sisters, and the teasing became only more malicious after Cassie caught them at it and intervened. There’d been shoves in the hallway, flicks and pinches to his ears, projectiles launched at him from across the lunchroom or the school bus. They’d tormented him, and he’d simply taken it because he already knew what happened to people who tried to fight back.

Cecil Kyle had been the worst of the bullies.

Cecil Kyle was now standing less than four feet away from him, rinsing soap from his hands.

Davie can’t help but stare at him. He hasn’t been in the same class as Cecil since the first grade, when the bullying had been the worst. Cecil’s cronies had continued the torment the next year, but it had tapered off. Just children being children, the teachers had said. It would stop in time, and they had been right. That hadn’t made the pinches to his ears or the shoves into walls at every turn any easier to bear.

 _You’re so weak_ , something in his mind tells him, permeating his thoughts like liquid smoke. _You never did fight back. Not against your father, not against any of them _.__  Davie clenches his hands into fists and swallows hard. The rage is cresting again, and if he can just clench it into ash, maybe he can control it.

Cecil catches his gaze in the mirror and scowls. “What’re _you_  looking at, Gallagher?”

The dam bursts.

He practically lunges across the bathroom floor, and before Cecil can even react, grabs a fistful of hair and pulls his head back. Davie’s father isn’t here. He isn’t here to get what he deserves. He’d died without retribution for the pain he’d caused Davie, the pain he’d caused his sisters and mother. But he wasn’t the only one. He wasn’t the only one who had made Davie hurt.

_I can make them all pay._

A supernova blossoms behind his eyes, turning his vision orange and red and sending burning adrenaline coursing through his veins. His muscles twitch with the need to lash out, and as the gaseous explosion in his mind expands, he has no room in the sensible part of his brain for self restraint. The first time he slams Cecil’s head against the mirror feels like a sigh of relief. The second time feels like satisfaction. The sound of glass shattering feeds the roar of the flames crackling in his ears and he keeps going until there is nothing left to burn.

When the teachers come to investigate the commotion in the bathroom, they find the broken mirror and Cecil Kyle with his bloodied face first. They find a small puddle of vomit on the floor of a closed stall, and when they open it, they find Davie, curled atop the toilet, head between his knees. His breathing is ragged, and all he is able to say is, “It was the fire,” over and over, slurred into an incomprehensible whisper.

 

He is expelled immediately. 

Thankfully, the school year is almost over, anyways.

When Mr. and Mrs. Kyle show up at their front door, white-lipped with anger and threatening things like hospital fees and legal charges, Davie thinks of hiding, then changes his mind, and finally compromises, hiding where he can still hear what’s going on. His mother wails to them about poverty and grief, about how awful it is for an eight year old boy to lose his father so young.

Cassie cuts in impassively when she eventually goes to pieces and runs back into the house. She asks them, disdain dripping from every word, what kind of satisfaction they could possibly gain from pursuing legal action against a child.

“We deserve some kind of compensation! Cecil is lucky he didn’t lose the eye!” Mrs. Kyle screeches, bristling with indignation.

“David needs to learn that there are consequences for his actions, especially when his actions are this disturbing!” Mr. Kyle chimes in, condescending and judgmental.

“You want the insurance information? It’s shitty welfare—no union coverage for the family if the employee didn’t die on the job,” Cassie says bitterly. “And as for consequences, I’d love to know what kind of talk you had with little baby Cecil two years ago when he was picking on a kid half his size.” And with that, she slams the door in their faces. The sudden silence rings through the house for a moment before Cassie walks directly over to where Davie is hiding behind the old, sagging couch and drops to her knees to pull him into a hug.

“I won’t let them make you out to be some dangerous mental case,” she whispers furiously into his hair, “If it’s the last thing I do on this fucking planet.”

Davie doesn’t relax in her embrace, doesn’t hold her back. He isn’t sure he deserves the comfort.

 

As it turns out, protecting Davie _is_  more or less the last thing Cassie does on their miserable mining colony.

“How can you just leave me here like this?” Anna hisses one summer night in the kitchen. “How can you leave me here when Mom can’t be bothered to get out of bed most mornings and Davie’s sending kids to the hospital? What am _I_ supposed to do?”

Davie listens from the stairwell. He’s found himself listening to a lot of conversations he’s not supposed to recently.

“You protect them,” Cassie says back with conviction. “Like you always have. Especially Davie. Mom can make her own fucking decisions for all I care.”

“ _How can you say that?_ How can you be so lenient about this whole Cecil Kyle thing? Davie needs help. _Mom_  needs help!” There are tears in Anna’s voice now. Davie closes his eyes at the sound. Anna has always been the most emotional of the three of them.

“Mom’s an adult. If you think you can help her, be my guest. I gave up on her after Davie was born—“ 

“—And that’s another thing! How can you leave him behind—“

Davie doesn’t need to hear any more. His stomach is already twisting around itself. He carefully climbs down the rest of the stairs, avoiding all of the creaky spots, and opens the front door as quietly as possible. He doesn’t realize how warm he feels until the cool night air hits his face. He makes his way to the edge of the porch and sits down, knees pulled to his chest and face buried in his knees—feels his breathing stutter in and out of him.

He thinks he might be some kind of monster. The school thinks so. Mr. and Mrs. Kyle think so. Even Anna thinks so.

Cassie is the only one who believes otherwise. For the first time in his life, Davie doubts her.

Breathing while curled around his knees becomes too uncomfortable, so he lifts his head. The air hits his face again and only then does he notice the wet trails down his face. Crying again. Pathetic. He tilts his face upwards, willing any unshed tears to stay that way, and catches an eyeful of the night sky.

There are a few wispy clouds here and there, and the moon is bright tonight, but the stars are still brilliant points of wayfaring light against the blackness of space. He immediately locates the Pleiades, and then the stretch of the Milky Way that he’s confirmed contains the planet Earth. It’s fainter than nights without moonlight, but he can still vaguely see the particular pattern space dust whorls that he imagines contains Earth and the rest of the Solar System.

He wants to leave.

He wants to simply stand up and defy gravity, wrap himself in constellations and stardust, where he can’t be hurt. Where he can’t hurt anyone else.

The _longing_ that slams into him is so intense that it feels like an ache, and he can’t help the sob that peels from his throat. As he stares desperately at the stars, he cries for the things he can’t have, the things he can’t change. He cries in fear over what he might have already become. He cries for Cassie, for Anna, for Mom. He even cries a little for Cecil Kyle.

Neither Cassie nor Anna come looking for him after their argument, and so he stays there for the rest of the night, until the sobs fade to hiccups and the moon has completed its arc across the horizon—an insignificant figure against the backdrop of infinity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone!! I honestly have not a clue how the tagging system really works on AO3, so we'll probably be adjusting those as we go. Especially the character tags!
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you're interested in listening to me scream about Agent Washington and have absolutely no chill whatsoever, feel free to drop by [my tumblr](http://hakanakiki.tumblr.com/)!


	2. Escape Velocity

_escape velocity (n.) **-** the lowest velocity which a body must have in order to escape  
_ _the gravitational attraction of a particular planet or other object._

 

**4**

Every year since David’s father’s death seems to be a little better than the last. Anything after those first months, when his mother had barely functioned and Cassie had left them, would’ve seemed like an improvement, but in the beginning of his first year of high school, David realizes that not only are things no longer terrible, they’re not even so bad anymore.

Anna still lives at home. Cassie sends correspondence as often as she is able—although, interplanetary data transfers are expensive things, so they can really only afford to exchange e-mails every so often. His mother still has bad depressive episodes, but she has been doing better recently.

David is full of the kind of optimism that comes with the end of puberty. His voice has stopped squeaking (except when he yells, and he hopes that soon that’ll go away, too), his freckles cover the worst of the acne, and he got his braces off last year. Social mortification doesn’t seem to be a threat anymore, his home life is incomparably happier than it was while he was a child, and the world seems bright.

Well, not _so_ bright. The weather is usually cloudy, and there isn’t very much in the way of scenery. Figuratively bright, he supposes. Like some kind of metaphor.

He ponders this one day as he leaves school. He thinks of his mother laughing uproariously at his and Anna’s attempt to bake a cake, remembers how it had felt like the first time he’d ever heard her laugh like that. He thinks of Cassie spending the money to vid call him on his birthday last winter, the way her face looked exactly as he’d remembered, though she’s chopped all her hair off. He rubs his right thumb over the round scar on the inside of his left wrist and remembers how just last week, Anna offered to ask one of her nursing teachers about scar-removal treatments, how he told her that it doesn’t really bother him anymore. How he wasn’t totally dishonest, telling her that.

A stray drop of rain lands on his eyelid and David blinks, shaking his head to bring himself out of his thoughts. He’s been standing outside the entrance of the high school for at least ten minutes, waiting for the crowds of people to clear so he can navigate the sidewalk on his skateboard without causing an accident. Most of the busses in the roundabout have departed, and the walkers have more or less dissipated, seeking shelter from the rain as quickly as they can.

The rain has never bothered David. There’s something organic and cleansing about it, and the days aren’t cold enough yet that he minds coming home soaked.

He lowers the skateboard he’s got tucked under his arm to the ground and maneuvers it into position with his feet in one fluid, practiced movement. The grip of the textured surface under his rubber-soled sneakers is familiar and comforting as he steps on and kicks off, building up enough momentum to coast down the slight downhill of the parking lot entrance and lean into the turn onto the main road with a rare display of grace.

He counts the beats of the sidewalk gaps and cracks as he meanders his way home, letting his mind get lost again in the familiar rhythm of _roll-clack-roll-clack_. He knows better than to lose awareness of his surroundings while he’s skateboarding—his luck is good, but he thinks he might _actually_ get hit by a car one of these days—but he can never help himself. His mother calls him a space case with fond exasperation, and David secretly relishes the nickname, because one day he’ll actually _be_ in space, getting as close to the stars he admires so much as he can and observing them, studying them, figuring out how they exist in the vacuum of the universe.

A soft sound pulls him out of his fantasy. He snaps back into reality so quickly that his foot stutters against the pavement when he goes to kick off again and he fumbles, falling backwards as the skateboard continues on its path, pulling his right leg along with it. He hits the ground, catches himself on his elbows before the back of his head can slam against the sidewalk, and winces, feeling the instant sting of road rash.

His skateboard pulls ahead, a lonely shape in the afternoon gloom until it eventually tips over the curb and into the street. David picks himself up with a sigh. He takes a step to retrieve it when a car suddenly comes up the hill, hitting the errant board without even an attempt at a swerve. In its wake, there is nothing but a sad pile of sandpaper-covered wood and rubber wheels.

David makes a strangled sound in his throat. That’s the second one this school year, and he’s not sure he has the spare change to scrape together for a new one.

A dull roll of thunder rings out from somewhere in the distance. The undulations of the sound bouncing off of the hilly landscape sound a bit like laughter as immediately, the rain intensifies.

Well, he thinks to himself, he won’t get home any faster standing on the sidewalk. He takes a moment to inspect his elbows and grimaces at the long scrape on the back of his right arm. That’s going to sting later when Anna subjects him to proper first aid, he knows. He picks a rock out of a gouge on his other elbow with vague disinterest, letting the rain wash away the blood, and begins the long trek home.

He doesn’t take five steps before he hears the noise again.

Right. There had been a _reason_ he’d wiped out this time, David remembers. He turns away from the road, peering into the roughage of weeds that forms an embankment as the street heads beneath an overpass. There’s garbage everywhere—old wrappers, soda bottles, beer cans—and it takes him a long moment of scanning and a few more plaintive noises before he finds the source.

A pair of kittens is ensnared in some weeds, just far enough to be out of reach. A thrill of shock runs through him when he finally sees them, wet and miserable. One of the kittens is tugging weakly at the grass that has wrapped around its paw. The other sits by its side anxiously, occasionally batting at the overgrowth ineffectively.

When David was small, he and his sisters would attempt to curry favor with the stray and feral cats around their neighborhood with food. Cassie could usually get them to accept their offerings, although they would scamper away once they were fed. Anna could never coax the cats close enough to accept the food. But the cats always came to David, whether he had food in his hands or not. Some of them even allowed him a few pats on the head before they sauntered off. Cassie used to call him a cat whisperer.

He doesn’t even hesitate.

David climbs up the steep embankment, feeling mud squelch beneath his new sneakers. The kitten tangled in the weeds sees him approach and redoubles her—he’s decided they’re both hers—efforts to escape, hissing as he draws near. The other one makes to scamper several times as he approaches, but always comes right back to her sister’s defense. By the time he reaches them, they’re hissing and yowling in warning, ears flat against their skulls.

So small, so angry, so helpless. David knows what that feels like.

He reaches his hand out slowly and the protective kitten lunges for him, tiny teeth sinking into the meat of his palm before she darts back, bristling as much as she can while soaked with rainwater. David knows that he could easily capture her and then free the other, but he’s already facing a forty five minute walk home in the rain with two skinned elbows, and he’d rather not injure himself any more this afternoon.

After a moment of consideration, he remembers.

“Oh.” He pauses. “Hey, it’s okay little guys,” he says softly, peeling his wet bag from his back and rummaging through it. “I’ve got something you’ll like. Or, I think you’ll like it?” Once he’s found what he’s looking for, he carefully replaces his bag and stares at the object in his hand.

_Can cats even eat bananas?_

But it’s all he has, so he shrugs and begins peeling it. He pinches a segment of the fruit off and holds his fingers out to the kittens, who are watching him warily. They’ve stopped hissing, at least.

“C’mon,” he coaxes, keeping his voice soft and soothing. “I know you’re hungry.”

The protective kitten moves to attack him again, but seems to think better of it when she sniffs the air. She approaches him slowly, making displeased mews all the while, as if threatening him with bodily harm if the food in his hand is a ruse. She finally eats some of the banana from his hand, and allows David to feed the ensnared cat as well.

By the time the kittens have eaten about a quarter of the banana, the protector has begun rubbing up against the back of his hand. David figures that he’s won whatever trust two terrified animals can give him for the time being and finishes the rest of the banana himself, pressing back against the rhythmic rubbing. The kitten purrs and something in David’s heart melts. They look like Himalayans, but he can’t be sure. He’s spent a lot of time in the school library looking at cat books, but none of those pictures were of _wet_ cats. It’s a lot harder to tell this way.

“Okay, buddy,” he says to the trapped kitten. “Let’s get you outta there, and then we can go home.”

When he goes to extract the kitten’s paw from the weeds, her twin hovers anxiously, mewing urgently and abandoning David to stand guard over her sister again. The trapped kitten panics for a second when David gently lifts her foreleg for better access, and when she tugs it out of his grasp, the grass unwinds itself from her paw, sending her tumbling for a moment.

“There we go,” David says triumphantly. “That’s much better, isn’t it?”

He manages to scoop up both kittens and tuck them against his shirt beneath his zipped hoodie. They resist him at first, and he gets a few holes in his shirt and a few more scratches on his hands for his efforts, but eventually, the kittens settle for the occasional pathetic mew in protest to being carried.

“It’s okay,” he tells them every time. “It’s gonna be okay now.”

By the time he gets home, he has named the protective cat Ari, after the ancient Greek god of war, and the other Skyler, because he likes the sound of it.

Anna scolds him for an hour for coming home so late covered in scratches. She rubs antibacterial gel into the scrapes on his elbows with more vehemence than David really thinks necessary. His mom protests the presence of the two kittens until Skyler rubs against her ankles and purrs. She sighs in defeat.

“Ari and Skyler, huh? That’s my space case kid for you,” she says in fond exasperation. “You’re in charge of the litter box.”

Something like a balloon inflates in his chest. David smiles so hard his face hurts. He can’t remember doing that before.

**5**

High school blurs by in a frenzy of worksheets, tests, and mostly-unattended social events. The beginning of David’s senior year finds him sitting uncomfortably in the cheap plastic chair in his guidance counselor’s office, chest deflating as all of his cultivated hope starts a slow leak, turning to dread somewhere in his stomach.

“You want to do _what_?”

His guidance counselor is staring at him incredulously.

David sighs and leans forward in the chair, bracing his elbows on his knees. “I want to go to university. I want to study astrophysics like my oldest sister,” he repeats.

“Son,” the man starts, and David immediately fights the urge to roll his eyes. “You do realize we are at war, don’t you?”

He leans back further in his chair and sorts through the paperwork on his desk when David doesn’t answer. “Father, deceased…mother, secretary…” he mutters to himself, looking through the papers. “Two sisters, one off planet, one a nurse… Grades, above average… Behavioral report…”

He looks up again at David. “Well, son? What in the universe made you think you were going to college?”

David’s rage is something he has grown used to controlling. It sits like a hot stone in his belly most days, something to ground himself with when he needs that. Now it feels like embers behind his eyes, pulsing and hot, begging for a breeze to rekindle the flame. He stares at the plaque on the desk in front of him. _Mr. Vorsky_ stares back at him in embossed, golden letters. He wonders why teachers feel the need to omit their first names from those fancy plaques.

He takes a deep, quelling breath and centers himself. Getting angry won’t get him anything, will only prove the corpulent bastard— _Mr. Vorsky—_ right somehow. “There are scholarship programs—I’ve looked into it. I know that I can’t go off-planet, but there’s a couple of decent schools that aren’t too far from here, and I want to apply for them,” he says evenly, catching his counselor’s gaze and holding it, steady and defiant.

Mr. Vorsky looks at him searchingly for a moment before shaking his head and leaning back in his chair. The cheap, plastic thing creaks under his weight ominously. He shuffles through the paperwork again, focusing on what looks like his high school transcript of the last three years.

“You’ve got drive, son, I’ll give you that.”

David clenches a fist into his jeans.

“But the fact is, even without this little…” He flips through some more papers. “Incident that happened in the third grade, that can’t be legally sealed from your record until you turn eighteen,” he says delicately, glancing up to David to judge his reaction.

He keeps his face as neutral as he can and raises his chin in defiance.

“We’re at war,” he repeats, bluntly. “No scholarship program is going to accept an able-bodied person who can go fight. There’s too much at risk.”

“But there’s no draft!” David cries, frustration in his voice. He sits back up in the chair so quickly he almost bangs his head against the wall behind him.

“Not officially,” Mr. Vorsky agrees without missing a beat. “But that’s just the way things are. I can't just send _anyone_ to pursue higher education at a _university_. There are exceptions, of course...” he trails off, scanning David's file again in a dismissive series of flips. _But you're not one of them._

“But—“

“And besides,” Mr. Vorsky says, raising his voice a little to cut off David’s interjection. “No university on any planet is going to give a scholarship to the kid who was one quick paramedic away from committing murder when he was,” he looks at the paperwork on his desk again. “Eight years old. Sorry, son.”

_Call me son one more time_ , the burning monster behind his eyes hisses. David doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he stands abruptly, wiping his shaky hands on his jeans. He presses his lips together in a furious line and leaves the office without another word.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, that he has to redirect his entire future into something he’d frankly never considered. He doesn’t talk about the conversation with his counselor to anyone, lets it burn like acid through the layers of stubbornness and indignant rage at his center. Anna flits in and out of his space when he’s at home, her concern tangible. He knows he should talk to her about it, but he can’t make it real yet. Instead, he lets Ari and Skyler crawl over him and purr against his face, his stomach, his knee. It doesn’t really change anything, but it does make him feel less like punching something in frustration.

A few weeks after his future plans were shredded into the war machine, he walks into the cafeteria at lunchtime and sees two men standing in fancy looking uniforms, backs ramrod straight, behind a table covered in pamphlets. The sourness of rejection has barely settled in his stomach, but he’s practical enough to know that he should at least get some information about the whole thing.

He approaches the table warily and grabs a pamphlet—a physical, paper pamphlet. Men in various types of armor stare back at him, their expressions unreadable behind tinted or mirrored visors. There are fewer pictures than he’d expect on a pamphlet, just glossy words printed on glossy paper about the nobility of war and the camaraderie among soldiers. David’s lip curls a little and he clenches the pamphlet in his hand, creasing the smooth paper a little. Like he can’t see right through their propaganda bullshit, like they can try to make war something that isn’t the all-encompassing terror that the Covies will find his star system next, like—

“You lookin’ to join the UNSC Marine Corps, boy?” a voice booms from behind him. David jumps away from the table, raising the fist clutching the pamphlet—( _Your planet needs you! The human race needs you!_)—in front of his face defensively. He curses as he lowers it, cheeks heating at his own jumpiness.

The recruiter merely raises an eyebrow at him. “You got good reflexes,” he notes. “Like to see that in kids. So, lookin’ to join?” he repeats, much more conversationally.

David swallows the excuses that come forth to press against his lips. _No, I want something else for my life. No, I don’t really want to die for this. No, I want to be an astrophysicist—_

_—No university on any planet is going to give a scholarship to the kid who was one quick paramedic away from committing murder—_

“Yeah,” he chokes out, then shakes his head and clears his throat. “I mean, yes,” he repeats, straightening his stance and meeting the recruiter’s eye. “I suppose I am.”

Stars. His head is filled with starlight that pulses against the boundlessness of space to the rhythm of his heart. He’s lost in it, tiny and insignificant against every single event that has led to this moment, every possibility that this moment will make way for. This decision means nothing. This decision means everything. He can’t take this back. He hasn’t done anything to even take back yet.

“Well then,” the recruiter says, placing a firm hand between his shoulder blades and leading him to the edge of the long table. “Let’s talk about your options.”

**6**

The rest of his senior year is a gradient blur of futility. What use is homework when the most important skills for the next step in his life include how to shoot a gun? Why bother to take tests about subjects he won’t have time to ponder again? David takes it all seriously anyway, as he always has. He has never hated school, and he knows somewhere in the part of his consciousness he actively avoids visiting that this will be his last chance to sit in a proper classroom.

In between the busywork and ancient, corrupted files of classic literature uploaded onto his datapad, there are meetings and interviews and doctor’s appointments, all ensuring that he is in perfect condition to fight aliens. His pediatrician tells him he should consider trying to gain some muscle before boot camp, but David figures he’ll do enough of that soon enough. Besides, he has never been self-conscious the way some of his classmates are about his skinny limbs.

“They’ll put you on double rations anyways,” she explained. “With extra vitamins. All outer colony kids get the vitamin supplements.”

“Lucky me,” he deadpanned.

He had been concerned about the…incident in his record showing up on his enlistment paperwork. His counselor had informed him that the record would be sealed on his eighteenth birthday, but…

“Even if it wasn’t, it’s not like they wouldn’t take you,” Mr. Vorsky had said, an undertone of laughter in his voice making the anger surge up from David’s belly so quickly he had to clench his fists to his sides to avoid punching him.

Nonetheless, he delayed putting the paperwork in until March 1st, two whole weeks after his eighteenth birthday. The Marines sent back a packet of paperwork with a brief statement that his record was certifiably clean and curt instructions regarding his report date. David had let out a sigh he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and a knot of tension a decade old had loosened its hold on his heart.

There is very little time to _think_ amidst the chaos that is his legal cusp of adulthood, and David likes it like that. Neither Anna nor his mother are pleased with his apparently hasty and impulsive decision to join up with the UNSC. Anna implored him to explore options on-planet, sending him links to all kinds of trade schools and job applications on his data pad. His mother begged him to at least consider other options.

“It’s my decision,” he had told them, steeling his expression against their protests. “It’s my life.”

His mother just gave him a look he couldn’t decipher and hugged him. He was surprised to realize he was taller than her now, surprised at the tightness of her hold, surprised at the entire display. She hasn’t said another word about it since.

Anna, however, is relentless.

“You could even get a job at the spaceport,” she tells him one evening. She’s curled into the armchair caddy-cornered to the couch, working on a crochet pattern and batting Skyler away from her yarn. When David looks up at her, she doesn’t meet his gaze. “This is about you and the stars, right? Joining the Marines. You can stargaze all you want at the spaceport.”

David doesn’t respond, just keeps looking at Anna until she stops fidgeting with her needle and sets the project aside. Skyler takes the opportunity of her freed hands to curl up in her lap.

“I didn’t join the Marines just to see the stars, Anna,” he says finally, scribbling down the answer to a calculus problem on his data pad.

“Then why?” There’s a sharpness to her voice that David has never heard before, and this time when he looks up, Anna is staring right at him. There’s something dark in her gaze, something pleading, something like…

“Why do you have to leave me, too?”

The words hang between them for a moment, heavy and loaded with a thousand more unsaid.

“I…” David sighs and tosses his data pad onto the other cushion of the couch to run his fingers through his hair. Anna doesn’t understand. Anna has _never_ understood—has always been perfectly happy to stay here, planetside, and make the best of whatever comes to her.

But wanderlust has scratched at David’s bones his entire life, ever since he saw the stars and realized there was far more to the universe than just their grubby mining colony. Any place would be better than here, he thinks, has always thought. Any place would be better.

“I can’t stay here,” he says finally, refusing to look back at his sister, refusing to see the accusations there. “I just have to go.”

Anna doesn’t respond right away. Skyler, sensing the tension, hops off of her lap and exits the room, meowing for her sister.

“I wish I understood you,” Anna murmurs, her voice muddled with unshed tears and so quiet that he has to look up to catch her voice. “Either one of you. Cassie told me the same thing, before she left.”

David thinks of whispered conversations in stairwells, of a hollowness beneath his breastbone that anger was so quick to fill before he replaced it with tarnished, stubborn hope.

“Is it that easy to leave me behind? To leave _Mom_ behind?” Anna’s voice cracks, and to David’s horror, suddenly she’s crying, face blotchy as tears spill from her eyes. He stands up from his seat, because he doesn’t know what to do. He’s never known what to do with displays of emotion, his own or others’. When he approaches her, she jerks her body further into the cushion of the seat, dropping her face into her hands as her shoulders shake.

“Anna,” he whispers. He reaches out to her hesitantly and places a hand on her shoulder. It doesn’t seem to do anything but make her cry harder, but David doesn’t know what to say to make this better. Instead, he stares at his outstretched hand, catching the familiar discoloration of the burn scar on his wrist.

He remembers that day in perfect clarity. He had knocked the ashtray over, and his father had screamed at him before yanking him towards him by the arm and putting out his cigarette on him, instead. The pain was white behind his eyes and throbbed black for the rest of the day. It was the last time his father ever laid a hand on him.

He remembers Anna soothing his hiccupping sobs and smearing salve over the wound while Cassie paced the length of their bedroom in her fury. The salve had to be reapplied what felt like a hundred times that day, the sting of the fresh burn hammering away at his pulse, but Anna had been patient with him, whispering words that soothed the shock of the injury while administering the medicine.

“I’m gonna miss you like hell,” he blurts, squeezing her shoulder lightly. He’s horrified to feel tears prickle behind his own eyes, so he clenches them shut for a moment. His mother’s face swims into his vision, smiling in the eye-crinkling way she does when she’s especially pleased. “Mom, too. It’s not easy to leave,” he confesses.

Anna shakes her head, but removes her hands from her face so she can tug him down into a hug and sob into his shoulder instead. He hugs her back and tucks his chin against her glossy hair, letting her cling to him awkwardly. There’s a part of him that wants Anna to stop crying quickly, so they can be finished with this display of emotion. There’s another part of him that wants to commit it to memory forever.

No, it’s not easy to leave, he thinks. It’s not easy to leave behind the only people who give a damn about him on this planet.

It’s just impossible to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo boy this was a longer wait than I anticipated!!! When I started this, I didn't realize what I was writing. I have a much better grasp on where this fic is going now. Thanks for sticking around for the ride!! I am, unfortunately, having computer issues which means I have no idea if or when I'll ever be able to become a consistent updater. Thanks for sticking around for the ride!!
> 
> Super huge shoutout of gratitude forever and ever and ever to the lovely [anneapocalypse](http://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse) for betaing this for me! And another super huge shoutout to the RvB writers Discord chat for generally putting up with my nonsense as I scream about fic research and the like.
> 
> You all are awesome!!!


	3. Tidal Force

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief warning for some language of the variety one might expect from a drill instructor.

tidal force (n.) _\-- the gravitational pull exerted by a celestial body that raises the tides on another body within the gravitational field  
__dependent on the varying distance between the bodies_

 

 **7**  


_To: david.gallagher@leo.unsc.gov_  
_From: cgallagher1030@google.unv  
_ _Title: Re: I’m Alive!_

  _Davie,_

  _Good to hear that you made it to boot camp alive--  
__Not that I’m happy about the whole thing.  
__This isn’t what I meant when I said you’d get out of there, David.  
__I get it, though. You know I do._  

 _Reach is nice. I’ve only been here for about a month or so, but I like the job.  
__The stars look different from the inner colonies. Further away.  
__There’s a lot that’s different about the inner colonies._  

 _Try not to get your ass kicked too much.  
__You never were the most graceful, kiddo._  

_All my love,_

_Cassie_

 

Basic training is the most physically taxing thing he has ever done in his entire life. All the times he walked to the edge of town and back, all the times he skateboarded to some distant point only to have to walk back in various weather conditions, nothing compares to being run into the ground and then scored on how quickly he can do it. He wakes up every day at 0400 and is exhausted by the time they allow him to flop onto his cot at 2000. Everything has a time. Everything has a place. Structure is second only to cleanliness is second only to godliness.

David _loves_ it. He’s surprised by how right it all feels.

He’d felt it the moment he’d stepped onto the interplanetary ship that would take him to Camp Leo, the UNSC Marines Boot Camp facility in his star system. There had been a shift somewhere in his mental processes, like a door shutting on a room full of memories that make up his childhood, for better or worse. In this new room, the walls are freshly painted a nice blank white, and there is nothing on them but the UNSC logo for now.

There are no difficult decisions to make here. There is no uncertainty as to what he’s supposed to do. You do what you’re told or you face the consequences. The discipline makes sense, isn’t random violence with alcohol at its root.

For the first time in his life, David feels like he’s doing more than just surviving, being strung along by circumstance. For once, he’s _thriving._

It’s not all perfect. For one thing, he does wish they had more fresh fruit. Apples, maybe. David really misses the fresh crunch of a crisp apple, but after weeks of vitamin-enriched protein shakes and double rations, he’s put on some solid weight, so he can’t really complain. His uniform is almost starting to look like it fits him instead of hanging awkwardly from his frame. He supposes that’s why they issue them that way.

He contemplates this one day at breakfast, picking up a spoonful of questionably runny eggs and letting it dribble back down onto his plate.

A tray slams down beside him suddenly, and he jumps, accidentally splattering egg slurry into the heap of canned peaches in another section of his tray. David glares at the yellow globule of _gross_ defiling the syrupy goodness of his fruit and looks up, leveling a glare at his bunkmate.

“Stevens,” he says, assessing the damage done to his breakfast. “There’re eggs in the peaches,” he grumbles, picking up the peach in his spoon and eyeing it for a moment. He pops it in his mouth and chews experimentally. It’s not so bad—he can’t even taste the difference.

“If you’re not gonna eat the rest of your eggs, this recruit’ll take it,” Stevens offers, beginning to shovel his breakfast into his face. Stevens used to eat whatever David couldn’t finish of his double rations, but as the physical and mental training has intensified in the last few weeks, he’s managed to find room in his stomach for all of his food now.

“ _This recruit’s_ gonna eat it,” David assures him quickly, shoving a bland spoonful into his mouth to prove it. Double rations, regular rations, half-rations… by now, no recruit turns down food. Especially not breakfast. “It just tastes _weird_ ,” he complains with his mouth full. They’re not really allotted enough time to use their table manners and finish swallowing before speaking.

“Just eat it all together. It all goes to the same place anyways,” Stevens informs him, slurping up a peach from his spoon.

“That’s disgusting,” David replies, voice flat, shoving the last spoonful of egg into his mouth. He washes it down with the chalky vitamin drink, grimacing at the vaguely metallic taste it leaves behind in his mouth, and stands up to dispose of his tray, ignoring Stevens’ strangled, panicked cry.

“Shit, man, you just gonna leave? Fucker,” he calls out between gulps of vitamin drink.

David tosses a crooked grin over his shoulder and digs through the pocket of his fatigues with his free hand. A momentary search produces a yellow, plastic straw looped into a smiley face. He turns and brandishes it at Stevens triumphantly.

“Need a straw?” he offers.

Ignoring Stevens’ sputtering response, he replaces the straw in his pocket, spins his tray between his hands, gets it into position, and slams it onto the wash pile. He stops briefly to grab his rifle where it’s stacked neatly against the wall with the rest and exits the mess. Robinson and Luo are already there—they’d finished eating while David was still morosely glaring his meal into oblivion—and they chide him for both his and Stevens’ tardiness. His comebacks come light and easy, and the day continues.

He hadn’t expected to enjoy this, any of it. He had come in guarded, convinced he was immune to the propaganda of the UNSC and what it stood for. But here, surrounded by people from the same cluster of outer-colony planets he came from, it’s a little easier to accept. It’s a little easier to believe in what they’re doing, in what they’re learning to protect. 

Boot Camp goes like this: David comes in on the upper end of average for height and lower end of healthy for weight. They tell the recruits that they will have their first Physical Fitness Test in a week and make them start running drills. When he falls behind, the drill sergeant screams at him about joining the wuss platoon with the rest of the pussies and fatties. It incites a kind of instinctual urge in him, the kind of urge that he’s usually thought of as a bad thing, the kind that leads to clenched fists and a burning in his brain. Now, it pumps his legs harder against the track and pushes extra strength into his arms at the pull-up bar.

It gives him an edge of determination that tempers the molten rage he has spent the last ten years trying to bury.

Now, he spends most of his waking hours in tandem with three other people, who are in tandem with six other squads of four to make a platoon of twenty-eight. They have started to breathe as a unit, he and his squadmates, operating as one. It’s a new feeling to David. It’s a _good_ feeling, working in a group, being able to rely on others. Trust and determination, new dampers to balance the parts of him he’d prefer to ignore.

When Stevens finishes his breakfast, no less than two minutes later, they leisurely jog towards the classroom building, rifles hooked into grips that are starting to feel more like instinct. Lectures, physical training, cleaning detail, formations… every day, sliced into neat little compartments of time. Predictable, not necessarily _easy_ , but simple in a way. Just like the arc of the sun and the moon across the sky, and the slow circle of the stars above them all.

David feels the sun on his freckled face before he sees that it’s emerged from behind the clouds. He tilts his face to it and allows himself a brief second to close his eyes against the light.

Simple is good.

 

**8**

“Luo, see if you can get behind it! Gallagher, covering fire!”

Something detonates somewhere to his left—shit, were there _buried mines?_ —and David dodges away, just outside of the blast range. Robinson continues to shout orders, but Luo is deftly maneuvering around the thick overgrowth they’ve taken cover in, so David keeps his rifle trained on the target and shoots as Luo gets nearer, trying to distract it. The bullets continue to bounce right off of its armor and he can _not_ for the life of him remember what type of alien this is and how to deal with it.

“Robinson!” one of the members of Squad 2940—Ironsi, that’s his name—calls over the radio, rolling out of the way of something spiky, purple, and decidedly armor piercing. He’s on the other side of the clearing, trying to get some kind of shot in. “What the hell is this thing supposed to be again?”

Robinson ignores him, continues shouting troop movements to some other squads. She’d been made in charge of their platoon for this part of their training—the Ice Machine. David remembers distantly that long ago, before alien invasions and slipspace travel, it used to be called something else. The Crucible, or something.

Not important.

He refocuses on the situation, sucking in a breath when Luo finally manages to maneuver behind the thing and take shots at the back of its neck.

“It’s armored back here, too!” she screams over the radio, voice rising slightly in panic.

“Fall back, Luo!” Robinson tells her. “We’ll figure it out!”

“What _is_ it?” Ironsi asks again. “What’s it supposed to _be?”_

Luo makes a dash back towards the weeds, less careful in her retreat. Their armor makes it easy to cut through most of the thick fibers, but if she’s not careful…

“Luo, watch out!” David cries in warning, just before Luo trips over a snag of vegetation. She goes down ungracefully, the power armor they’re still not quite used catching against a rock with a clang.

Nothing can be simple, can it?

The alien reacts, its armor-plated body twisting as it tries to locate the source of the noise, and David sees a bolt of bright, poisonous orange as it cranes its neck over its shoulder.

Orange. Armor plating. Right.

Automatically, without waiting for instructions, David raises his rifle, takes aim, and fires a quick burst at the exposed weak spot. Each bullet hits, but it’s not enough to take down the creature. He knew one volley wouldn’t be.

“It’s a Hunter!” he informs his platoon. “Go for the gaps in its armor!” he tells them, voice overlaid with Robinson’s command to do the same thing.

“Dammit, David,” Robinson hisses at him over a private channel. “I’m the one in charge here!”

“Sorry, Niqa.” He scans their enemy and takes aim as the Hunter lifts a massive leg to turn towards them. He sinks more bullets into the soft space behind its knee. “Wasn’t thinking,” he grunts, ducking the return-fire of more purple spikes.

“They’ll dock you points for that,” she continues, but she’s already readying a grenade and cuts off their private connection to start lobbing ballistics at the Hunter.

They defeat it within minutes. It’s a simulation, not the real thing, so the “Hunter” merely collapses in on itself, oozing neon orange fluid. The clearing is silent for a moment, all of the recruits in Platoon 15 collectively catching their breaths.

“Park, Serrano, Douglass,” Robinson says after a moment. “Hunters come in pairs, and we have no reason not to expect that to be the case here. Do you have visuals—“

“Got it,” Serrano says sweetly. David can practically see Robinson twitching to tell her off for interrupting, but in the next moment, there’s the telltale _BOOM_ of a rocket launcher firing and hitting a close target.

Another beat of silence.

“It’s taken care of.”

“Thank you, Serrano,” Robinson intones dully with a sigh. David watches her shake her head. “We’ve made a lot of progress today, soldiers,” she says, voice stronger. “If we can continue at this clip, we should be out of this mess by tomorrow 1600 hours. Just in time for dinner,” she adds, the smirk audible. “Get some rest, soldiers. A day and a sleep, and we’ll be done.”

They make camp, unloading supplies from their packs and setting up their makeshift shelters wherever they’d like. David has first watch, so he leans back against a tree as people find places they can pretend are comfortable to lean against as they sleep in their armor. If he concentrates hard enough, he imagines he can actually feel the rough bark against his back, despite the layers of kevlar and titanium alloy that separates him from the tree, the weather, everything.

It used to feel stifling. The air in his helmet is recycled and stale, too cold when he wants to be warm and too hot when he wants to cool off. Now, in the midst of this elaborate battle simulation, it feels like security. He can’t remember exactly when that change happened.

“You’re a damn good shot, you know.”

David jolts, and then tries to hide it by adjusting his grip on his rifle. He scowls inside his helmet. He’s _on watch_ —now is not the time for his head to be up in the clouds.

“So they tell me,” he says lightly, turning to face Robinson. She’s leaning against a different tree, looking far more relaxed in her armor than David feels. He allows himself an annoyed pang of jealousy.

“Why didn’t you go for sniper certification? I’ve been meaning to ask.”

He did. It didn’t go well. It turns out sniper rifles are much too heavy to twist around with, too cumbersome to try and shoot an object in motion while he is also in motion. He prefers the action, the satisfaction of making a near-impossible shot and not having time to _think_ , only to _do._

“I like my rifle,” he says instead with a shrug. “Sniper rifles are boring.”

They fall silent for a while. David focuses his attention on making sure his audio and visual filters are optimized for sensing alien simulations, letting his focus pour into listening to the sounds of the forest settling around them. He can hear the scrape of metal on wood as their platoon settles into uneasy rest.

“Is this where you wanted to be?” Robinson asks a moment later. When he turns to look at her, she’s got her neck craned to peer at the sky between gaps in the trees. “When you think about it?”

David has spent the last eleven weeks decidedly _not_ thinking about it. He doesn’t answer right away, just tilts his own gaze to the sky. He feels a shiver run down his spine when he sees Orion’s Belt, right there in his limited view. “Does it matter?” he asks, tracing constellations with his eyes.

“I wanted to be a movie director,” she confesses. “My parents weren’t thrilled. And then they got the school on my case, because—“

“ _Son, you realize we’re at war, right?_ ” David mimics bitterly, scoffing his boot against the dirt. The familiar anger throbs deep in his chest, and he tightens his grip around his rifle.

Robinson breathes a quiet chuckle into their radio connection. “Exactly. What did you want to be?”

David doesn’t reply. He can’t find Earth from here, just a few familiar constellations. They look strange like this, framed by the trees. Brighter.

“See that cluster? The one that kind of looks like a diamond?” he murmurs.

“Yeah,” Robinson says slowly, confused.

“Those are the Pleiades. They’re some of the brightest stars in the known galaxy,” he tells her, the words familiar as the patterns of dots in the sky he’s admired his entire life.

“Okay,” Robinson says, after a beat.

He wonders how the stars look from other places in the galaxy. Cassie has told him a bit in her e-mails, but it’s one thing to hear about it and another thing to _see_ it. He’s trying not to be envious.

“Hey, Gallagher?”

“Yeah?” he says distractedly, sweeping his gaze back down to the forest to scan for anything suspicious. He doesn’t think anything will come and attack them in the night—not after they made them take down a pair of Hunters.

“You’re a fucking dork.”

He snorts quietly into his radio, biting his lip to hide the smile that Robinson has no way of seeing. “Whatever, _movie director._ ”

 

**9**

 Dress blues are itchy and uncomfortable. David wishes he had his fatigues instead. Or even the power armor he’s only just gotten used to. 

“Look how handsome you are!” his mother exclaims from the vid connection, beaming. David shifts uncomfortably. “All grown up in your uniform… I like your hair longer, though,” she notes.

He runs a self-conscious hand through his regulation haircut. He keeps it just at regulation limits—his hair is just too _blonde_ and he just looks completely bald if he goes any shorter. “Regulations,” he tells her with a stiff shrug. He hates this uniform.

“So now what?” Anna asks. She’s been quiet so far—hasn’t sent him many e-mails, either—but her gaze is intense and searching and far too _blue_ in the video quality.

“I’m staying here at Leo,” he says. “It’s too expensive to rocket us to all corners of the galaxy.”

It’s also too expensive to let him do things like _actually_ visit his mother and sister instead of having to video call them for his own graduation. The UNSC is fair, though—even the recruits that come from this planet aren’t allowed actual visitors on Visitation Day.

“That’s nice,” his mother says, something like relief crossing over her face. David thinks it’s a weird thing to say about the situation. “I already have one kid light years away from home. Cassie is hard to keep track of.”

David doesn’t tell her that Cassie reliably sends him a weekly e-mail, her cushy job on Reach paying the expensive data rates. Anna gives him a look that makes him think she probably gets weekly e-mails, too. Easier not to talk about that.

“ _For now,_ ” he reminds her. “I could go anywhere at any time.”

An uncomfortable silence settles around them. David forgets sometimes—is meant to forget—that his family doesn’t really quite understand how the military works. He’s spent the last twelve weeks redesigning his sense of self, learning how to think as a part of a whole. Learning how to separate the bitter teenager who didn’t want to do this from the thrumming young soldier who _does._ He has an entire mental room dedicated towards it, divided into neat little sections. He has taken great care to keep it that way from the start.

His family doesn’t have that, though. They don’t have to have that.

“They probably won’t reassign me anytime soon,” he says finally, amending himself.

Anna sighs in relief. “Good,” she tells him, shifting so that she’s a little closer to the screen. “I hate space travel. I hate the thought of it!” she says suddenly.

“You’ve never traveled through space,” David reminds her. “How would you know?”

Anna shudders. “Anything can happen up there,” she says darkly. “It doesn’t even have to be the Covies. One faulty wire, and the whole thing could explode! Or, or a pressure leak, or…” the trails off, glancing at their mother. “Or anything,” she repeats, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms over her chest.

“Anna, are you afraid of space?” their mother asks, leaning towards her. She looks shocked by this revelation, her eyebrows skyrocketing the same way Cassie’s always do when David tells her something especially audacious.

David laughs, a startled sound more than anything. “How? You _live in space_ , Anna,” he tells her, cracking a grin. “Space travel has been safe for hundreds of years now.”

“You wouldn’t exist at all if your great-grandfather hadn’t come over on the third colony ship,” their mother says, settling back in her chair and crossing her legs at the knee. It’s her favorite position for telling old family stories.

“He came over from Earth and we’ve been stuck in the mines since,” David mutters, rolling his eyes. A chastising look from his mother tells him that UNSC microphones are better than he’d thought.

“I’m not _afraid_ of it,” Anna snaps, defensive. She never did take to teasing very well. “I just have more common sense than _some_ members of this family.”

“Hey,” David says weakly, holding up his hands in front of the screen. “I take offense to that.”

Anna rolls her eyes at him.

He finds his lips twitching up into a crooked grin. There’s something both familiar and refreshing about this kind of banter. He’s wondered if Anna hated him for leaving, but no, she’s just as he left her twelve weeks ago. David thinks that he himself has changed, but Anna hasn’t, and it’s a relief. There’s only one thing left for him to say:

“When do I get to talk to my cats?”

 

Hours later, he’s sitting in his bunk alone, carefully browsing through the screenshots of Ari and Skyler he took during his “conversation” with them. He stripped out of his dress uniform as soon as he was allowed, changing back into fatigues. Official “visiting time” is over and most of the other recruits, including his bunkmates, are using the first real free time they’ve had in weeks to be anywhere _but_ the stifling barracks. He doesn’t mind. The silence and solitude are nice, familiar. Comforting.

He’s in the middle of cropping a snapshot of Ari, mid-yawn and ferocious, when his datapad pings with another video call alert. He stares at the name on the blinking notification for a second before accepting the call, feeling his cheeks pull back in a grin.

“Took you long enough,” he greets, pulling his knees to his chest as he leans back against the wall. He props the datapad against his folded legs and crosses his arms over his chest, attempting to look stern.

“Constipation isn’t a very good look for you, brat,” Cassie says, the sting of the tease completely negated by her own face-splitting grin. “And God, neither is that haircut. But the Marines have done those noodle arms of yours some good,” she comments, leaning forward as if to get a better look at her screen.

“I didn’t have _noodle arms,_ ” he complains, rolling his eyes. “You haven’t seen me since my birthday.”

“Yeah, and you had noodle arms,” Cassie says, leaning back from the screen once she’s apparently satisfied.

David takes a good look at her. She hasn’t changed too much since February, but he can count the number of times they have been able to afford a video call in the last ten years on one hand. He isn’t sure when the next chance will be.

“You look completely different now,” she says softly. Her eyes are just as eerily blue in the video resolution as Anna’s were, as their mother’s were.

“Yeah, well…” he scratches behind his ear awkwardly. “You look exactly the same.”

They trade banter for a while, quick and easy. The job on Reach is lovely, comes with all kinds of perks and access to equipment that outer colony research stations can only salivate over. David knows enough to be jealous on behalf of all astrophysicists still stuck in the Leonis Minora system.

“Figures,” David says, only a touch of bitterness clinging to his voice. “They never really care what we get up to, as long as it isn’t treason.”

Cassie is quiet for a moment. She gives him a long, searching look.

“You can’t talk like that anymore, you know,” she says. “You’re a certified UNSC Marine now.”

“I am,” he agrees, and the truth of it suddenly hits him all at once. He’s a _soldier_. Not even technically out of Boot Camp yet, but he has an actual paper statement as proof. It’s tucked carefully into his locker, beneath folded clothes that won’t wrinkle it or wear the edges. “I really am.”

“I was furious with you,” Cassie says suddenly, her posture suddenly tense. Something flashes across her face, cold like ice. “Furious. And more furious at everyone who didn’t stop you.”

David thinks of his mother, resigned to believing that Cassie is simply too busy, too far away to get in contact with. It makes him sad in a way that it hasn’t in a long time. “Don’t blame Mom, Cassie,” he says quietly. “It was my choice.”

Cassie sighs and looks away. He thinks, for the first time in weeks, of Mr. Vorsky laughing at him in that tiny office. It feels like so long ago since he made this decision--since this decision was made for him by war and lack of opportunity. It still feels like his only option, but now it feels like the _right_ option, too. It no longer makes rage bubble in the pit of his stomach--he’s found a better direction for that. A handful of weeks short of a year, and he thinks it’s an awfully short amount of time in which to change.

He thinks about chalky vitamin drinks and double rations. He thinks about the feeling of crossing the finish line during his last run test and realizing he’d almost halved his entrance time. He thinks about his squad, his platoon, and all the microscopic ways they’ve learned to rely on each other, ways that he’s never been ably to rely on _anyone_ before, even Cassie. He thinks about the stars between the branches, of burying his old dreams in quiet conversation filtered through helmet radios.

He thinks about all the things he’s discovered he can _do_ and all the ways he’s eager to prove it.

“I don’t regret it,” he tells her, because it’s important to him that she knows it.

“I know you don’t,” Cassie says. “You’re going to do just fine. You’re the toughest kid I’ve ever met.”

David blinks, and knows he didn’t stop the twitch of shock from rippling across his face. He feels a twinge in the scar on his cheek, a little more visible now that he’s spent the last twelve weeks in the sun.

“You are,” Cassie insists. “So just promise me one thing, kiddo.”

“Sure,” he says, looking away and picking at his regulation blanket to get his expression back under control.

“Don’t do anything stupid. If you die because you did something stupid, I will _find_ a way to piss on your grave.”

He laughs, a sharp, surprised sound. When he turns back to the screen, Cassie is grinning at him, the freckles across her nose crinkled into constellations that almost look familiar.

“Promise,” he says solemnly, holding up his pinkie. Cassie rolls her eyes at him.

That’s familiar, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS DELAY IS INEXCUSABLE AND I APOLOGIZE. This chapter was a bit of a doozy to get out, but we should be picking up the pace here shortly. 
> 
> As always, come have exactly zero chill with me here at [my blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/hakanakiki).


	4. Radial Velocity

_radial velocity (n.) -- the movement of an object either towards or away from a stationay observer_

 

**10**

 

When he was a child, David thought of the military as some abstract idea that didn’t exist in his life. A blip on the news, reports of battles and skirmishes where brave humans rocketed around the galaxy to defend their race. Most of his preconceptions were obliterated by Boot Camp, if not his first year as a marine, but he still finds himself confronting the gap between his expectations and reality on occasion.

He’d always assumed that becoming a marine would mean space travel. The recruiter had made it seem that way, telling him about getting off of his home planet, out of Leonis Minoris, even. But he’s been stationed here at Camp Leo since graduation, stuck planet side, and he wonders when he’s going to get a chance to admire the stars from a shuttle again, to see them at different angles.

In the meantime, there are other things to look forward to. Like Liberty, short pockets of time that are all his own, uncontrolled by military efficiency. And sometimes, if he’s lucky, his Liberty falls during local events.

The festival he’s at tonight is loud and crowded. The scents of popcorn and powdered sugar are thick in the air, made heavier by the mugginess of the summer night. Floodlights at seemingly every corner make the sky a pool of inky darkness, devoid of any stars, but David knows they’re up there, because he memorized them last night from base while on lookout duty. Boring, monotonous lookout duty, where he and four other people in his battalion blinked sleepily at the forest surrounding them in case any aliens decided to spontaneously appear.

The festival is a blessing. The last twelve hours of Liberty have been a blessing, and he has thirty six more he can use to make bad decisions.

David walks through the fairgrounds, the ground beneath his feet spongy with the famous native grass. It’s bright fuchsia and he thinks it would stain his footwear if he owned anything other than his standard-issue black boots. Even then, he knows that he’ll need to polish them to keep everything up to protocol, but that’s something to think about later. Thirty six hours later, to be precise.

For now, he’s on a mission, and that mission involves the largest funnel cake he can find. With extra powdered sugar.

David glances at the beer tent when it comes into sight. It’s the noisiest part of the festival, because some things are universal truths, and communities coming together in public drunkenness thinly disguised as seasonal celebrations is one of them. He slows his pace and lets his eyes slide distractedly over the bar patrons until they settle on one man standing with--David assumes--his friends. The man’s teeth flash as he tosses his head back and laughs, and David follows the curve of his throat, funnel cake forgotten.

“Oi, Gallagher!”

A shove to his shoulder jolts him out of his thoughts, and he pulls his way from the distracting way the man at the bar’s collar dips just low enough to expose some dark chest hair. Vaguely annoyed, he directs his gaze downwards and is not surprised to find Serrano, all toothy smile and dangerously flashing brown eyes.

“What do you want, Serrano?” he says sharply, drawing his arms across his chest in annoyance. When he chances another glance up, Mysteriously Attractive Bar Man has slipped away. Oh, well. David wasn’t _really_ going to approach him, anyways.

“No need to get pissy at _me,_ ” Serrano replies, rolling her eyes and mirroring David’s posture. She follows his gaze with the same sharp accuracy she uses on the battlefield, confirming that the man at the bar has left. “You were out of his league anyways,” she says casually, untangling her arms to pat David’s shoulder in sympathy.

David feels every freckle on his face heat. Begrudgingly, he lowers his arms and lets them sway gently at his side. “You really think so?” he asks, and hates the way he sounds _sheepish._ He’s David Gallagher, nineteen years old, and on Liberty. He should at least be able to have a hookup fantasy with _confidence._

“ _Definitely_ ,” Serrano confirms emphatically, nodding. She turns her attention back to the bar, shamelessly scanning the crowd of people. “That lady’s really hot,” she notes casually a moment later.

David follows her eyes to a blonde woman wearing a black dress that drapes around her figure, somehow creating a neckline that plunges towards her midriff. She’s all neck and arms and delicate, smooth skin.

“She’s not my type,” David says with a shrug.

Serrano squints at him, and then back at the woman. “I forgot you only like women who can beat you up,” she says with another devilish grin.

David chokes on spit and moves to swat at her shoulder, but Serrano dodges the blow with a giggle, moving to stand next to him. “Well, your loss,” she concedes. “She’s _my_ type.”

David snorts, ducking his head to hide the lopsided grin on his face. “Maybe _you_ should be the one going over there to talk to her, then,” he teases, shoving her in the back.

“Oi!” Serrano barks as his shove sends her lurching forward a couple of feet. She catches herself and whirls back towards him. “Ain’t none of your business what I do on Liberty!”

“And it isn’t any of _your_ business who _I_ do,” David counters, raising an eyebrow. “Or don’t do.”

“Eugh, _tetchy,_ David,” Serrano replies, scrunching up her face and sticking her tongue out. “Anyways, I’ll catch you later. I have about six more rounds of shoot-the-can before they kick me out of the games tent, and I have my eye on that giant teddy bear."

“See you in thirty six hours,” David replies, waving as Serrano flounces off.

If he’s entirely honest with himself, he had been a little disappointed when his first assignment after Boot Camp was still at Camp Leo. He’d known that it was much too expensive and inefficient for the UNSC to send him somewhere far away, somewhere the stars looked different, but part of him had still held out that maybe he’d be the exception.

But staying at Leo hasn’t been bad. Staying at Leo has meant staying with his entire battalion from Boot Camp and all of the friends he’s managed to make. David really feels as though he could trust any member of his battalion after spending the first twelve weeks of their collective military career shining boots and assembling rifles together. There’s something reassuring about that, something that almost feels _permanent_ in a way he supposes jettisoning across the galaxy never will.

He still wants to. And he will someday--he knows it somewhere in his molecular makeup. He’s not really putting roots down here, just extending tendrils of himself to those he can trust.

But he thinks he might finally understand why Anna is so okay with staying in one place for her entire life.

“Hey.”

David turns his head towards the source of the greeting, blinking in surprise. The man he’d been eyeing at the bar is there and his friends--David chances a glance--are still at the bar. He clears his throat, which is suddenly dry and sticky feeling.

“Hello,” he greets uncertainly.

“Like what you see?” the man says, cocking an eyebrow. David sputters even as he feels his knees want to melt beneath the man’s cocky expression.

“I-- uh,” he starts, carding a hand through his hair.

“It’s okay,” the man continues, taking another step towards him. He smells like fancy cologne and campfires. Both scents are unfamiliar. “You were pretty obvious about it.” He leans in further, his lips brushing over the shell of David’s ear. “And I like what I see, too. Wanna get out of here?”

David shivers against the sensation, but feels the excitement of the night seep into his muscles, pull them into confident shapes as he turns and presses into the man’s embrace. “I’d like that a lot,” he purrs, breathing in more of the man’s scent. It’s unfamiliar, but intoxicating all the same.

He takes the man’s hand and lets him lead them away.

He still has thirty hours left of Liberty, after all. He’d better make the most of them.  
  


**11**

   
There is a rotation of duties at Camp Leo that privates typically get assigned. There’s lookout duty, which is by far David’s favorite, because it gives him an excuse to stargaze for the entire night. Patrol duty isn’t awful, either, but when the weather is cold, it’s more of a pain than it’s worth. The downside of them both is that there is nothing to bother looking out for or patrolling.

Both of those, however, are better than motor pool duty.

Motor pool is most of the privates’ favorite place to be for the day, because if the CO is nice and there isn’t much maintenance work to be done on the vehicles, they can sit in a Warthog and twiddle their thumbs for an entire shift.

However…

“Private Gallagher!” the corporal bellows. “Explain yourself!”

David ducks behind a support beam just as the warthog he was supposed to be servicing crashes into a low wall that serves as the boundary between carports. Once he’s sure it won’t try to kill him again, he jolts upright into position. “The Warthog has gone rampant, Corporal!” he yells back, voice high with panic.

The rest of his battalion fight not to laugh. David catches a couple of wayward snickers and hopes that the corporal will focus on them.

“And how exactly did the warthog go rampant, Private?”

No such luck.

“Uh,” David starts, quietly, and racks his brain for the answer. He’d been trying to change the _oil_ in the damn thing--he has no idea how that translated into the warthog trying to run him over. “I’m not… entirely sure, Corporal!” he calls back.

This time, he hears more than a few peals of laughter.

“Quiet in the peanut gallery!” the corporal hisses, whipping around to the rest of the battalion. They shape up, cinching back into parade rest with commendable speed. David would be impressed, except he’s at least sixty five percent sure the culprit of this entire fiasco is in there somewhere.

“Private Gallagher!” the Corporal shouts again. “Answer me a question, would you?”

“Yes, Corporal!” he responds immediately.

The corporal pauses for dramatic effect. Everyone in the room straightens their posture a half inch more.

“Why do cars hate you, Gallagher?” he says finally, shoulders drooping back into his normal, relaxed stance. “I’m running out of duties to assign you in here, Private.”

He’s not wrong. Last month, David accidentally blew up a vehicle because he attached the cables wrong when he tried to charge the battery. Two weeks ago, he changed the brakes on a warthog only to have it collapse once he was finished, the axle inexplicably damaged beyond repair. And now today.

“I don’t know why cars hates me, Corporal,” he replies formally, maintaining parade rest.

“At ease, Private,” the Corporal tells him, waving off his formality. “And let’s get this mess cleaned up! That goes for all of you!” he says louder, directing his voice over his shoulder at the rest of the battalion.

Ironsi groans. “ _Us_ having to clean up after the fun wasn’t part of the plan, Stevens!”

“Yeah, well,” Stevens says with a shrug. “It was definitely worth it to see him run like that.”

“Thanks, guys,” David intones as they pass him, shoving Stevens’ shoulder with a wrench.

“Any time, Gallagher!” Ironsi calls, making a rude gesture.

David sighs and makes his way to one of the upturned piles of spare parts that disturbed during the warthog’s manic episode. Motor pool duty is the worst because somehow-- _somehow_ \--something like this manages to happen every time. He didn’t encounter very many cars at home. His mother and Anna always took public transportation, and he preferred his skateboard to anything else. It was probably a good thing he hadn’t grown up around cars, because he thinks he wouldn’t have made it out of childhood. Cars just hate him, for some reason.

He’s in the middle of jamming a bunch of shiny, new wrenches back into their box when the emergency siren starts blaring.

There’s a moment where the atmosphere stays the same, stuck in the friendly lull of the last few moments. Then the corporal snaps upright and starts directing orders mechanically, and everyone assumes that it’s some kind of drill. David drops the box of wrenches and shuffles into line.

After a minute, however, he realizes there’s something wrong. The alarms are still blazing and no one is coming over the intercom. They’re all looking towards the corporal for instructions but he’s standing with his hand cupped over his helmet, the universal if unofficial body language for talking on the radio, and why would he be talking on the radio if this were a drill? Why would they be having a drill this week when the last one was just last month, anyways? Unless it’s not--

He hears the explosion before the wall opposite to where the privates are huddled in lockdown drill formation blows in. For a second, time slows down as he watches the debris fly at them and he ducks as chunks of metal and rebar fling past him. David doesn’t need to have ever heard what reinforced steel sounds like penetrating light armor to know that not everyone is so lucky. He stays low to the ground, dragging himself behind as large a chunk of wall as he can find for cover.

Once his heart stops pounding against his eardrums and he confirms that the explosion didn’t blow out his audio filters, he chances a glance around the room. Nothing else seems to have happened--there’s no Covies streaming into the room, no rush of men coming in to tell them there’s been an accident, and somehow that’s the most jarring part of it, that there’s no one coming in to explain what’s going on.

His radio screams to life--literally screams as some of his injured squad mates cry out in pain. It takes him a moment to realize that the radio isn’t broken or damaged--the delayed response has taken this long, and no one knows what’s going _on_ , what to _do,_ and if David has to listen to the panicked chaos on the radio, he’s not sure any of them can make it out of this--

“Everyone, _shut up!_ ” Robinson bellows, her voice crackling on the radio. Amazingly, they do. There’s a beat of silence, long enough for one breath of air. “Who is injured? One at a time!” she barks as the chaos starts up again. “None of us are making it out of this alive if we can’t figure out what’s happening!”

David starts to make his way across the room. No one seems to be dead, and that’s the extent to which he listens to the status report. His mind is racing too fast to concentrate on anything else and he’s not sure what their orders are, what they’re supposed to _do_ and he wonders wildly if it’s another test.

“Privates!” the corporal’s voice cracks to life over the radio. Everyone hushes at once, and David stops his directionless crawl to listen. “We are under attack,” the corporal continues, the calm note in his voice belied by a slight shake. “I repeat, we are under attack. Everyone is to make their way to the North Wing immediately! Your HUDs have been updated.”

Regroup in the North Wing. There, a goal. An order to follow. David stands up carefully and gets his first clear look of the destroyed motor pool. The force of the blast knocked all of the vehicles backwards and everything seems slammed against the back wall, which is ominously littered in gouge marks from flying debris. He looks at where was standing and feels a sick laugh bubble out of him, because of _course_ there’s a warthog there, of _course_ cars are still out to kill him at a time like this--

“David.”

“Serrano?” he replies, and he can hardly recognize his own voice.

“David, I need help getting out of here.” Her voice sounds strange, like she’s speaking from under water.

“Where are you?” he says, looking around. Most of the privates are making their way out of the room, several with squad mates across their shoulders in a fireman’s carry. And then, as he looks back to the warthog that almost killed him, he sees her.

The world screeches to a stop, everything slowing down until his heartbeat is nothing but a slow roar in his ears. He thinks the warthog has crushed her and wonders wildly how he’s going to lift it, but when he bends down to look, he sees that she’s just behind the wheel, unpinned by the body of the vehicle.

“It fucking ran over me,” Serrano says, her voice still strange and thick. Broken ribs, David thinks wildly, internal bleeding, and what if her spine was damaged?

“Shit, Laura,” he breathes, running his hand over his helmet. Everything he’s ever learned about transporting an injured comrade slams into the front of his brain, but there’s no way to know if a medic is coming, if a stretcher can be fashioned out of anything around them…

“Right,” he says, and his voice sounds more familiar to his own ears this time. His mind made up, he shifts some debris around until he can get a good angle and hauls Serrano up. To her credit, she grunts once and goes silent. The only other sign of discomfort she shows is her ragged breathing over the radio when David drapes her arms around his neck, leans forward, and positions her around his shoulders.

Another explosion wracks what feels like the entire base as he exits the demolished motor pool and he squats down in a corridor, his heart beating a tattoo on the inside of his rib cage. “What the fuck is happening,” he whispers to himself as he straightens up again and takes off at a jog.

“Covies…” Serrano pants, gasping as the corridor opens up into another mess of shattered wall and support beams. “What else?”

David slams to a stop--the collapsed corridor is too tricky to run through. Covies? In Leonis Minoris? The Covies have been out in deep space, have begun to approach the outer colonies but-- “We’re not out that that deep,” David mutters, picking his way through the base. The closer he gets to the North Wing, the worse the devastation.

“Deep enough,” Serrano replies, her voice slurred. She sighs into her radio, but it sounds funny, like she can’t get enough air in to sigh properly.

David hits another pocket free of debris and takes off at a run this time. There are people up ahead, some from his squad even. “Almost there,” he grunts. Serrano doesn’t reply.

“Serrano?” he says again. “Laura?” he tries, panicked when Serrano fails to respond a second time. He’s caught up with most of the crowd, it seems, and he slows down, switching radio channels. He immediately blinks through his HUD options and turns the volume down against the onslaught of chaotic shouting over the main channel. He makes a split second decision not to contribute to the noise and puts on a burst of speed, making two quick turns into the North Wing.

The North Wing is a misnomer. It’s not a wing at all, in that it’s not really part of the base structure. It’s little more than one massive open space that serves as the border between Camp Leo, the base and Camp Leo, the recruit intake. They use it as a parade ground or a rendezvous point. At night, it’s often a great place to look at the stars while out on patrol, because of natural features which make it almost bowl-shaped. Today, the sky is a dark, sick purple with the aftermath of the explosions that have wracked the base and whatever caused them.

“Gallagher!” Robinson shouts, calling him over. “Report!”

David jogs over to her. “Serrano is injured,” he says between breaths, panting as he tries to catch his breath. “Crushed by a warthog.”

“Was there anyone else in the motor pool when you left?”

David feels his heart plummet further. “I… I didn’t check. Is anyone missing?”

“I don’t know,” Robinson says. “There’s a triage point over there,” she tells him, indicating the nearest hill. “Get Serrano checked in and meet me back here.”

David makes his way to the triage point. If he thought the radio was chaotic, this is worse, full of people who were caught unaware by the explosions in various states of distress. The occupants of several beds are covered completely in white sheets. Some of the white sheets have blotches of blood. David stares at one as a medic unloads Serrano from his back and asks him a few questions until someone finds a partition to block his gaze.

He should still be wondering what’s happening, but all his brain seems capable of emitting is a high pitched buzzing noise.

He makes his way back to Robinson and she leads him over to their squad, which groups up with their battalion, led by the corporal. He leads them into formation in the center of the wing, surrounded by everyone uninjured. Almost everyone is caked in gray dust from the explosion, and when David glances at his own hands, he finds them almost black with it.

Suddenly, his radio goes silent.

“Attention, Camp Leo,” and unfamiliar voice intones, loud in his ears no matter how David blinks through his audio settings. He can tell by the fidgeting of the privates around him that he isn’t the only one.

“We are currently experiencing a catastrophic breech of defenses in the Leonis Minoris system,” the voice continues, as cool as if it were announcing the weather. “Hostile Covenant forces have landed on the continents of Oceania Major, Kazanguni, and Afrogermany,” the announcement continues, as if David’s world isn’t ending. “I repeat, we are looking at an invasion on three continents of Leonis Major. We have not been able to make contact with Leonis Minor.”

A palpable tension races through the air, as though everyone heaves a massive, silent, hitched breath together. David finds that his hands are clenched into clammy fists at his sides and hastily unfurls them back into position.

“Leonis Secundus has been lost.”

The temperature of the room seems to drop twenty degrees. The high pitched buzzing in his brain is threatening to take over, is shaking apart the walls of his internal house, because Leonis Secundus is gone, but it can’t be gone, it’s a whole planet--

“The UNSC Navy has arrived for evacuation. We will commence civilian evacuation once all military personnel have boarded the craft you see above you,” the announcer continues. His voice sounds far away in David’s ears. “Your commanding officer has further instructions.”

The announcement ends with an audible click and is replaced immediately with panicked chatter on the main radio channel. David finds himself rooted to the spot as though he is the center of the storm of his thoughts.

Leonis Secundus is the poorest of the three colonies that make up the Leonis Minoris system. It’s known for being less ethnically diverse than Leonis Major and Minor and for its high mineral content. Its native flora are most similar to Earth’s, of the three planets.

And David has never considered it home until now.

“All right, everyone!” his CO screams. “Let’s get moving! The faster we get into these birds the faster we’re out of here! File into lines--the layout has been uploaded to your HUDs!”

The crowd jostles around him and David stumbles into line. It feels as though there’s some invisible shell around him, the same feeling when his hand falls asleep and he tries to use it. He feels the crowd moving around him from somewhere in his center, but it feels as though they’re touching him through a thick rubber suit. Everyone is shuffling into an efficient if messy line, filing off into the open maws of pelicans and strapping in.

He’s safe, he realizes. The initial explosion left him unharmed and he’s about to be shipped to certain safety, far above his head.

It doesn’t make him feel any better, though.

The private channel he shares with his friends pings. “Wait,” Ironsi says. “Why are _we_ being evacuated first?”

“We’re getting out of here and you’re _complaining?_ ” Stevens shouts, his voice high and panicky. David wouldn’t even recognize it except that his name flashes across his HUD when he speaks.

“What about the civilians?” Ironsi repeats urgently. “Did anyone make it off Secundus?”

David mutes the channel hastily, something like nausea swooping through his stomach. When it’s his turn, he enters the pelican and mechanically straps himself into his seat. He wraps his hand around the safety bar as tight as he can during takeoff, and even as the rest of his body feels queasy in zero gravity, nothing budges the rock in his stomach.

**  
12**

  
The Battle of Leonis Minoris, as it would later be called, was technically a victory. The Covenant forces were forced to turn back by Admiral Cole and his fleet, which sustained a loss of ten ships.

No one is celebrating.

Leonis Major and Secundus were completely destroyed, and still no one has heard anything from Leonis Minor.

David and the other marines of the former Camp Leo walk around their designated section of the frigate in a daze. Some sit in the mess hall or the recreation room all day. Some huddle together, gripping each other’s hands as though they’re all they have left in the world.

David spends most of his time alone in one of the many corridors running along the starboard side of the ship. The corridors are lined in places with floor-to-ceiling windows set into deep frames, and if he presses himself against them, it almost feels as though he’s pressing right up against the stars. If he stays there long enough, it almost feels like he could fall forward, numb, into oblivion.

He always wanted to see the universe like this. And yet, he never wanted to come to it like this.

Instead of connecting the dots and feverishly piecing together constellations out of chaos, now all he sees is the same pattern the freckles across his mother’s nose made when she smiled, the particular glimmer of Anna’s favorite necklace, the shapes of Ari and Skyler…

He tears himself away from the window, feeling a lump press up his throat. He’s a UNSC marine, and he won’t cry anymore. He spent the first week crying, but then, so did everyone, and no one berated them. Not for this. Still, enough is enough.

He’s kept all of his personal radio channels muted. Every time he sees Ironsi, Robinson, or Stevens, he finds a corner to duck into, a hallway connecting two parts of the ship to discover. He’s mapped out most of their allotted space in his avoidance.

He hasn’t heard any news about Serrano. He’s not sure how he would feel even if he had, whether the news was good or bad.

It’s as though all of his emotions are buried under a layer of ice. The ship is physically cold, because all personnel must be in armor unless they’re in bed, but even in his climate controlled shell, he feels as though he’ll never be warm.

Except…

Beneath the ice, he knows there’s something molten and burning and ready. And he isn’t sure he really wants to reach it.

He feels it whenever he thinks about how many pelicans were there to evacuate him, when he accidentally wanders into the wrong corridor and realizes how truly huge the ship is, when he thinks about how the ship has enough supplies to keep them alive for the next twenty years.

The only survivors of the Battle of Leonis Minoris are military personnel.

And it’s not fair.

He suddenly feels as though he has too much energy to stay in his relatively private corridor. His legs itch with the urge to run, to sprint, to burn off a restlessness that he doesn’t understand. He picks a direction and starts walking, keeping his sight on the windows.

Anna and his mother should be on this ship with him. It’s not fair.

His HUD pings suddenly with a message notification. He stops, confused because he thought he’d overridden all of the communication systems he was allowed to override. He realizes it’s an e-mail, which he hasn’t checked in days. His stomach sink to somewhere around his knees when he sees who it’s from.

David looks around, deduces that no one is likely to enter this corridor in the next hour or so, and finds one of the deep window frames to climb into before blinking through no less than two hundred e-mails from Cassie.

_David, you need to answer me as soon as you get this._

_David, tell me what’s going on._

_Oh, god Davie, please don’t be dead._

The e-mails get increasingly frantic, some barely legible. David skims through them until he gets to the one that set his notification off.

_David, your name isn’t in the listed casualties. Please answer me._

He sighs and closes the e-mail application. He knows he needs to answer her. He also suspects that he is one of only a handful of people who has any relative who wasn’t in the Leonis Minoris system at the time of attack, and the absurd guilt he feels about it paralyzes him.

He will answer her. Eventually.

 

A week later, the corporal hands him a datafile in the mess hall. “These are your next orders,” he says, as he’s told everyone else in their battalion. “Best of luck, Private.”

David doesn’t bother opening them until later, alone in his corridor with nothing but the stars for backdrop. It doesn’t really matter where he goes, he reasons, because it’s impossible to go too far from home now. He has no home.

None of it matters.

As if turning a finicky key into a rusty lock, a door springs open somewhere inside of him and the rage, hot and dangerous, blasts through the ice. He pulls back his arm and slams his fist against the window glass, but it doesn’t break, will never break under the force of his human, if reinforced, strength.

He hits the window again anyways. And again and again until he’s screaming into his helmet, his face wet with tears and snot, his hands sore and swollen feeling in his gloves.

When he no longer has the strength to do anything more than paw weakly at the glass, David presses his helmet against the window. The universe doesn’t care that none of it matters, he realizes. It’s going to fuck with him anyways.

The Battle of Leonis Minoris isn’t the first time, he knows. The stars have been mocking him for a long time. And it probably won’t be the last.

With numb, clumsy fingers, he inserts the data file into the slot in his datapad and opens his orders.

It doesn’t matter. Wherever he’s going, it doesn’t matter, because anywhere is better than here.

That much, at least, has never changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI EVERYONE! I know, it's been a terribly long time again. BUT! This is a fic I accidentally started during Nano last year, when I wasn't planning on writing anything, and now it's my Nano project for this year. I'm thinking consistent Monday updates are going to be the schedule from now on. Thank you as always for your patience and your kind words. Love and kisses!!


	5. Terminator

_terminator (n.) -- the boundary between the light side and the dark side of a planet or other body_

 

**13**  

Grief is very much like a physical wound. One that stabs, pierces deep, and takes a very long time to heal. Like a physical wound, the grief must be allowed to breathe, or else it festers. David had never known grief before the Battle of Leonis Minoris, but he has discovered that despite his initial conclusions, it can heal, and it is healing. Every year, the bruising grows a little lighter, the scar a little less red, until what remains is a memory, permanent but innocent, a scar on his mind, but not one that he needs to revisit and pick open every day.

It’s also part of maturing, he reasons, and growing up. Everyone loses someone. The human race is at war, a war that grows more desperate every year. His grief wound is in no way unique, and in some ways, that makes it easier to bear.

Still, he has finally fulfilled his dreams of ricocheting across the galaxy; he has seen the stars from many angles, and all of them remind him of home in some way. There was Sigma Octanus IV, another outer colony, where the stars looked as though they had been shifted a foot to the left. There was Cascade, a planet so bustling with activity that even from the fairly remote military outposts the stars were hardly visible. What he could see was so different from what he has always known it was disorienting, but beautiful all the same.

And now Camp Doveryat, on a far-flung planet on the other side of the galaxy from all of them. He has been here for the last year, and the stars here are so unfamiliar to him that he thinks he might be able to spend the rest of his life memorizing their shapes. He thinks he’d like to stay at Camp Doveryat--not permanently, never permanently--but at least for a while. There are opportunities here.

Which is why his review meeting with the first sergeant makes tendrils of dread start to curl up his stomach. For the first time since his military career began, David ardently wishes _not_ to launch himself into the next star system. Review meetings, for him, always seem to mean just that.

“Corporal Gallagher,” the secretary greets him. “First Sergeant Saunders will see you now.”

David swallows the lump in his throat and adjusts his gauntlet. “Thank you,” he replies and approaches the open door to the office. He tries to shake his dread--First Sergeant Saunders has never made him nervous before. He has only ever been kind to David and the other corporals at this outpost.

That doesn’t mean he won’t transfer him out anyways.

“Good afternoon, First Sergeant Saunders,” he greets, removing his helmet and snapping off a crisp salute.

“At ease, Corporal,” Saunders says, looking up from his datapad. He gestures to the chair in front of his desk. “Please, take a seat.”

The dread returns, black and thorny. He’s going to be reassigned. First Sergeant Saunders knows about that incident with the warthog last time he oversaw the privates’ motor pool duty.

David sits, his back ramrod straight.

“I’ll be blunt with you, Corporal,” Saunders says, looking back to the paperwork on his desk. David is viciously and suddenly reminded of Mr. Vorsky’s office. He reminds himself that it doesn’t even exist anymore, and has no place existing even in his memories. “Your performance here has been exemplary.”

David blinks.

“Your rapport with the privates under your command is enviable. You have consistently made improvements on every fitness test since Boot Camp. Your middle-range marksmanship is, pardon my language, fucking incredible, Corporal Gallagher.”

David feels his freckles begin to heat and wishes he could jam his helmet back onto his head without consequence. The best and worst part of having a helmet is that he doesn’t have to worry about trying to train the expressiveness out of his face most of the time. “Thank you, sir,” he says, managing to keep his voice calm and measured.

“As you may have heard,” Saunders continues. “Sergeant Macklemore has been reassigned, and therefore, we have an opportunity to promote one soldier.”

The vines of dread from before vanish instantly, turning into smoke in his gut. The smoke swirls around his stomach, wants to pour from his mouth like steam, but David keeps his expression straight and sits up a bit straighter. His heartbeat seems louder in his ears, more insistent.

“Now, you’re not perfect,” Saunders continues, as if he can sense David’s eagerness. “You’re willful. Staff Sergeant Konote doesn’t think that you will listen to the commands you don’t like.”

David bristles, fighting the flash of anger he feels whip across his face. Staff Sergeant Konote is nothing but a brute and a bully. He goes out of his way to oversee David training his privates at least once a week, just so that he can point out whatever mistakes he has made that day. It reminds him too much of childhood bullies and brings his rage, always close to the surface, dangerously close to boiling.

“You can have quite the temper,” Saunders says, peering at him sternly above his glasses. David shakes his head minutely and tries to wipe his expression blank again. “Let the record state that I disagree with the Staff Sergeant, by the way.”

“Thank you, First Sergeant,” David says, relieved.

“I think that you have done remarkably well for a young man in your position. You have exceeded all of your commanding officers’ expectations, myself included, and you have made quite the name for yourself at this outpost as an officer your men can trust.”

David doesn’t respond right away. His mouth feels a little dry, but he’s not sure why. He feels strange all around, like he’s discovered some new emotion he’s never felt before, some new shade of embarrassment. He wants to simultaneously make First Sergeant Saunders stop talking about him like that, like he’s as good as all of those things, and to prove him right. He’s a good soldier, he thinks, and there’s no shame in admitting that to himself. There’s no shame, or embarrassment, in accepting this acknowledgment of it.

“I would therefore like to formally extend an offer of promotion to you, Corporal. Should you accept, you will become a sergeant.”

His heart pumps warmth into his veins, the kind of warmth that reminds him of hot cocoa and summer, of hope and opportunities and something else that he can’t quite place, that feels good the more he examines it.

“It would be an honor, First Sergeant,” he replies when he’s sure his voice will be as steady.

“Well then, Sergeant Gallagher,” Saunders says, smiling beatifically. “Welcome to your new rank.” He stands, gracefully folding his hands in front of his torso.

David stands, and feels his legs snap at the knee into perfect lines, everything aligned from hip to ankle just so. Tucking his helmet securely under his arm, he salutes again. “Thank you, First Sergeant.”

“You’re welcome,” Saunders says. “You are dismissed.”

The office reception area looks different when he exits, brighter somehow. His steps feel lighter, his posture effortless as he steps outside into a brisk fall day. He takes a moment to relish the feel of the autumn wind on his face before he spins his helmet between his hands and resettles it onto his head.

His previous promotions didn’t feel like this. They had been expected, inevitable transitions based on his time in the Marines. Others had been prideful of them, and David had always felt as though they were being a little obnoxious, flaunting their new authority like that. There wasn’t anything to get excited over in a mandatory, automatic promotion, he’d always thought.

But something is different about this time.

He begins to make his way to the mess hall--afternoon training will be ending soon, and his squadron is serving dinner. He needs to make sure everyone gets fed, which is no small task at a military outpost.

He can’t help but turn the conversation with First Sergeant Saunders around in his head, examine it from different angles. It’s not that he’s analyzing his responses, he realizes, but that he’s trying to savor it, to commit it to memory. Why?

This wasn’t mandatory. He was promoted, not because of the automatic ranking system of the UNSC Marines, but because someone decided to promote him.

Someone promoted him because…

A falling leaf, spiky and golden, whacks him in the helmet. David bends down to pick it up. He twirls it between his thumb and index finger as he walks, watching the way it blurs yellow-gray-green-blue-yellow depending on where he positions it against the sky, the buildings, or the grass.

It hits him, just as bright and gold as the leaf between his fingers. Someone promoted him because they believed in him.

He folds the leaf against his palm and imagines that he can feel its stems and veins through his gloves.

He will not betray this trust.

 

**14**  

The most terrifying part of being a Marine, David has learned, is not the acute sense of mortality, the unyielding chain of command, or even the level of self-discipline expected of him. No, the most terrifying thing about his entire military career is the fact that he is responsible for the military careers of other Marines, either directly, like the corporals he oversees, or indirectly, like the privates and lance corporals below them.

He has been a Marine for nearly seven years, and a sergeant for two of those years. He has had good commanding officers and bad commanding officers, and he is acutely aware of how people will use power to intimidate or assist others.

Just as he has no other choice but to trust his commanding officers, his men-- _his men,_ and it never gets old to think of them that way--are dependent on him, and he takes this responsibility very seriously.

“Then _Gallagher_ over here,” Staff Sergeant Konote sneers one night at dinner, “Decides that the privates only need to run three cool down laps. So if the fuckers have a bunch of extra energy tonight and get rowdy, you can blame him.” He grins across the table, shoving a bite of sausage into his mouth.

David tightens his grip on his utensils and focuses on mixing salt and pepper into his sweet potatoes. If only the food were more palatable--then maybe he could tune out this entire conversation.

“I’ll uh,” Sergeant Bolohov says uncomfortably, glancing between David and Konote. “Keep that in mind, Staff Sergeant. But we don’t exactly police the privates’ time after lights out,” he says stiffly.

Konote glares at him. “Well, maybe we should, Bolohov,” he says tersely. “I’ve been reading about how they used to develop _character_ in the Marines. They used to play all sorts of fucked up mind games on each other, to make sure we’ve all got the mental fortitude.”

David tunes out Konote’s rant, poking at his sausage in dismay. How can something supposedly stuffed with herbs and spices contain so little flavor? Tonight’s dinner is serving as poor distraction. He’s heard the “bully them to make them stronger” rant no less than a dozen times, and he thinks he may finally snap if he needs to be subjected to one more.

But in the highly structured UNSC Marines, changing his dinner seat now would mean all kinds of judgment, even if it’s only the unofficial kind. He doesn’t want to deal with the rumors and eye rolling, and especially not with any implication that he isn’t a soldier up to snuff.

He can take this abuse. It’s not the first time he’s been belittled.

It’s just the first time he’s had no _outlet_ for the rage that the belittling causes.

“What do _you_ think? Awful quiet over there,” Konote asks, jabbing his knife in David’s general direction. Several years of honed reflexes make him want to grab it and use it as leverage to flip him over the table. The same years of training in split-second judgments and situational awareness stop him.

He forces his hands to calmly lay his silverware down on top of his tray, and it is a testament to nerves that they don’t shake. “Well, Staff Sergeant,” he starts, innocently. “The privates in my squad generally don’t dread my presence, which makes them work harder and achieve, if I’m not wrong, the best overall marks in all categories,” he says, looking up and meeting Konote’s gaze. “So I’d say that bullying isn’t really the answer. Wouldn’t you agree, Staff Sergeant?”

Their table feels as though someone has shone a heat lamp over it. David forces himself to maintain eye contact even as he grabs his cardboard carton of electrolyte beverage, inserts the crazy straw he always brings to mealtimes, and takes a sip.

The harsh bell signifying the end of dinner rings. David and Konote stand in unison, without breaking their stare. The other sergeants wisely scatter, making their way to the front of the lines to stack their trays as quickly as they can.

“You’re an idealistic moron, Gallagher,” Konote says, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard. David dares to raise his chin in defiance. “I don’t give a fuck what First Sergeant Saunders says about you. You’re an idiot, and stubborn, and it’s gonna get you in trouble, boy,” he continues. “Mark my words.”

He does a quick about face and leaves David in the middle of the rush of people. David stands still for a moment, clutching his tray in front of him with a white knuckled grip.

He’s made it through another day without lashing out at his commanding officer. That’s the important part. The white hot rage behind his eyelids, pulsing down his shoulders, isn’t.

Taking a deep, calming breath, he finally approaches the line to dispose of his dinner. Another day down. He’s doing fine.

He does just fine through recreation time, taking advantage of his free hour to compose an email to Cassie, who is still out on Reach. Cassie is really his only confidant, but he is careful not to overburden her with his frustration and repeat the same complaints over and over again. He doesn’t really have a limit on how much data he can send per message, so theoretically, his e-mails could be as long and detailed as he’d like, but…

He can’t bring himself to rehash the same meaningless bullshit to his older sister.

And not just because her advice often involves him learning patience and how to “stop letting the petty things get to him.”

He does just fine through his evening routine, scrubbing his scalp, his teeth, his body a little harder than necessary, just to take the edge off of the black, angry energy he feels just beneath the skin.

But when he lays down for bed, he still feels it, coiled deep in his stomach, hot and solid, begging for an outlet. Sleep doesn’t come to him--no matter how hard he squeezes his eyes shut, it’s as though they pop back open on their own accord, as though they’ve forgotten, like the rest of the muscles in his body, how to relax. He thinks that he should’ve waited to write Cassie back until tomorrow and gone to the gym to burn it off.

Like the last five days.

He stubbornly stares at the ceiling tiles, the patterns he’s long-since memorized, and resigns himself to another restless night of anger.

It is because of this that he is awake when the emergency alarms sound.

The sliding metal door to his private room opens automatically, lights inlaid into the doorframe, the wall, and the floor pulsing red. David is on his feet and throwing on his armor in seconds. He jams his helmet onto his head and tunes into his radio just in time for the emergency announcement to begin, both inside and outside of his helmet, on the loudspeaker.

“The Covenant has reached this planet. We are under attack. All marines report to their immediate commanding officer for instructions. Again, the Covenant has reached this planet. We are under attack. All marines report to their commanding officers for your instructions,” the smooth voice of the emergency system AI intones.

David immediately tunes into the channel he shares with the other sergeants and Staff Sergeant Konote.

“Sergeants,” Konote says over the radio. As much as his usual grating drawl pisses David off normally, his voice is neutral and calm over the radio. “Run your emergency battle plans as normal. We’re going to try to pick them off from here. Navy and ODST is launching the offensive maneuver this time. Sorry, boys,” he says, signing off. David verbally confirms the command, and then switches to the channel he shares with the corporals under his command.

“Corporals,” he says, his voice strong. “Have your privates report to the west wall. We will be taking defense on this operation. Make sure everyone has adequate ammo.”

The west wall is his assigned emergency response station. The corporals know this, as do the privates. They have run this simulation three times in the last week alone. He confirms the corporals’ responses before grabbing his pistol from his bedside table, jamming it into the holster on his hip. He grabs his rifle from its spot against the wall and checks the ammo. He has enough to take out more than a few enemies.

He won’t be helpless this time.

It’s only when he jogs out of his private bunk when the adrenaline finally hits his system, and he leans forward into a sprint to the west wall. When he arrives, the privates are already at their battle stations. Extra ammo is being distributed down the lines of soldiers lined up against the wall, and more are positioning canons and other defensive heavy artillery.

It has been less than fifteen minutes since the emergency siren went off. This is a record for his men, and David would like to feel proud, but he has no room for emotion under the rush in his ears, his brain, every limb tingling with anticipation.

“Sergeant!” one of his corporals greets. “Everyone is ready.”

“Good job, soldiers,” David says. “Do we have visual?”

“Specialist Jefferson is sending us the vidlink now,” the corporal confirms, pressing his hand to the side of his helmet. “She says it will be available in thirty seconds.”

“Good. Dismissed, Corporal,” David says. He scans the rows of soldiers as he waits, but he need not bother. The entire squadron is working in perfect tandem. They are well trained and well prepared for this eventuality.

Then the video makes it to his HUD, and everything screeches to a halt.

The Covenant is everywhere. It’s a sea of horrific, alien faces, their mysterious plasma weapons neon stars in a sea of multicolored armor.

A wave of unease physically moves through the rows of privates and corporals. David feels his heart jump up somewhere near his throat. “On my mark!” he calls out over the channel, taking his position at the turret atop the wall. He allows a moment for every soldier, from the battle hardened veterans from other star systems to the greenest privates, to steady their resolve. “Now!”

He watches as their defensive assault hits the enemy. Those on the front lines begin to fall, but behind them there are more, and behind _them_ even more, and David doesn’t know how long they can realistically defend this position. He flips to the visuals from the other defense stations. The north wall is even worse--the Covenant has made it much closer to the base itself, though he can see aerial fire enter the camera feed from the navy ships above them. The south wall is mostly clear, and the hangar on the east side of the base is a flurry of activity, readying for evac.

David files all of this information away into the pockets of his brain that will need to think quickly if their defenses fall, and switches over to the sergeant channel.

“What happened to our offense!” Sergeant Garcia shouts. “How the hell are we supposed to get out of this!”

“Hold your position, Sergeant!” Staff Sergeant Konote screams over the radio. “Defend your positions until your evac is ready!”

“We’re going to need some time!” Sergeant Liu says from the hangar. “We’re going as fast as we can, but it takes a lot of manpower to ready an entire fleet of pelicans!”

“Sergeant Bolohov!” Konote shouts. “Are you clear?”

“Just about, Staff Sergeant!” Bolohov returns, his voice strained. “They keep coming, but nothing like Gallagher and Garcia have to deal with.”

“Do you need your entire squad there?” David asks before he can stop himself. “What if you spared some men to the hangar?”

There’s a beat of stony silence on the radio where he realizes his mistake. He turns his attention back to the turret, taking out several more Sangheilli warriors with deadly precision.

“Do it, Bolohov,” Konote says, his voice quiet.

David grits is teeth and tightens his grip around the triggers of the turret in anticipation.

Konote doesn’t disappoint. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he hisses over the radio, voice shaking in his rage.

“Apologies, Staff Sergeant,” David grunts, taking aim again. “I didn’t--”

“Let’s get one thing straight here,” Konote continues. “ _I_ give the orders here. Not you. Is that perfectly clear, Sergeant Gallagher?”

“Crystal, Staff Sergeant,” David says, failing to keep the sneer out of his voice as he takes aim and shoots again.

The radio clicks off ominously. He chooses to ignore the way his guts are at war, guilt because he _knows_ better than to speak over a commanding officers versus the anger he cannot help, because he was right, and they both know it.

It’s not as important as what’s in front of him. No matter how many enemies his men shoot down, they seem to keep coming. Pockets of open space open up throughout the alien forces where ODST fighters drop into the fray, but as efficient as special ops are, they’re terrifyingly outnumbered.

The next time he positions the turret to start another sweeping barrage of machine gun fire, it locks under his hands.

“Fuck!” he swears, yanking on it. The turret doesn’t budge. Completely jammed.

“I need a mechanic,” he says over the radio, hopping down from his station. He ducks enemy fire and makes it back to cover, looking out at his squadron, his breath catching in his throat.

The west wall itself serves as an excellent shield, but he still watches blasts of plasma pass their defenses, scorching the floor, armor, whatever they come in contact with. Field medics are doing their best to drag casualties to a triage point, but there are injured soldiers lying where they’ve fallen, some with limbs missing, the wounds cauterized by the deadly plasma fire. Their thick rows of defense have thinned, soldiers scrambling to pick up the slack, but he doesn’t have to check the vidfeed to know that it’s not enough.

“I need reinforcements,” he says over the radio. “I need soldiers!”

“I’m in the same position, Gallagher!” Garcia grunts. “We’re fading fast here!”

“Liu and I need every man on deck over here. We’ve started evac for injured soldiers,” Bolohov says, sounding strained. David glances at his own triage point and confirms that medics are rushing soldiers on stretchers across the base to the hangar.

He looks around again, then checks the vidfeed again. No matter how many enemies he takes down, how many are cleared by aerial fire or ODST offense, it doesn’t seem like the numbers have decreased at all. Why would they send this many? Unless--

“We’re about to get glassed,” he realizes aloud over the radio. “We need to get out of here!”

“We fight until the order says to evacuate, and all _you_ need to do is follow orders!” Staff Sergeant Konote shouts over the radio. “Consider this your last fucking warning, Gallagher!”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” David counters, adrenaline impeding his sense of duty. “It’ll be too late if we wait! We need to get everyone out of here _now_!”

“Gallagher,” Liu says, uncertain. “Remember where you are.”

David looks around him desperately, taking in the new gaps at the wall--literal gaps in some places, where it has begun to fail under enemy fire. He glances at the triage point, at the steady flow of soldiers being whisked eastward. It seems as though he has more men injured than there are left.

They cannot win this battle.

The inevitability of it hits him like ice, freezing his adrenaline and his rage. He cannot save this battle or this planet.

But he will not be helpless. Not again.

Conscience clear, he opens the channel for his squadron. “Everyone,” he says, utilizing the feature that will cut in over other radio feeds. This means that everyone up to the First Sergeant will be able to hear him, but it doesn’t matter. There will be consequences anyways. “We’re evacuating! Hold your formation and make your way to the hangar! There are pelicans waiting--the injured go first!” he barks.

Immediately, his private line with Staff Sergeant Konote lights up.

“Consider this the end of your military career! I don’t know who the _fuck_ you think you are--”

David mutes the channel. A certain giddiness bubbles up from his stomach, but he swallows the nervous laughter down. There will be consequences for this, he knows, but he won’t regret it. This is the right choice.

He’s halfway to the hangar when his radio clicks over to the emergency announcement broadcast.

“We are evacuating Camp Doveryat. I repeat, we are commencing the evacuation of Camp Devoryat. Everyone make your way to the hangar on the eastern side of the base,” the crisp voice says. “The injured will be evacuated first. Again, everyone make your way to the hangar.”

He allows his own vindication to carry him.

Staff Sergeant Konote is waiting for him just inside the entrance of the hangar. He rips his helmet off when he spies him and David has time to muse how stupid it is to unseal your suit minutes before boarding a Pelican go into _space_ before he’s right in his face.

“What the fuck was that!” Konote screams, leaning towards him. David mirrors him, disregarding his own thoughts of the stupidity of the action, and glares.

“I was right,” he says. “Staff Sergeant,” he tucks on at the end.

Konote is a couple of inches taller than he is. David hates every single one of them as he continues to loom over him. “I’ll have you court martialed,” he hisses, leaning in even closer. David takes a step back and bumps into a wall. He balls his hands at his side and grits his teeth. Something feels like it’s dislodging itself in his brain, something old and dangerous, and he knows he needs to stamp it down before the flames lick the base of his skull again.

“I fucking knew Saunders was wrong about you,” Konote continues. “You should’ve never been promoted. You’re a liability to this platoon, Gallagher, and to any troops who follow you--”

He imagines that he can hear a physical snap as the anger boils over. It rolls through him so quickly that David doesn’t realize he’s punched his commanding officer in the face until his fist is in front of him, shaking, and Konote is keeling over, hitting the ground with a clatter of titanium on concrete. It leaves as quickly as it came, running in waves down his arms and disappearing from his shaking hands.

When he looks up from his fist, what feels like the entire hangar is staring at him, looking as shocked as David feels. Sergeants Bolohov and Liu are heading towards him, apologies in the set of their shoulders but a stunner and cuffs in their hands.

The last of his righteous, vindicated rage leaves him in one sigh, one exhalation of the smoke that always follows the flames, and he does not resist when Bolohov cinches his hands behind him, or when Liu slips his helmet back over his head.

“I wasn’t wrong,” he says helplessly once his radio turns on. “I made the right call,” he says to them.

“The right call isn’t ours to make,” Liu says sternly.

His radio is silent for the entire flight to the Navy frigate.

 

**15**  

“All rise. Court is in session, Judge Balakrishna presiding. Please be seated.”

David takes his seat, although he wonders if this entire ritual is necessary--there is only him, the bailiff, the scribe, Judge Balakrishna, and Staff Sergeant Konote in the courtroom.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” the judge says, looking at her datapad. “Calling the case of the Staff Sergeant Michael Konote versus Sergeant David Gallagher. Are both sides ready?” she asks, looking up.

They both confirm, staring at each other across the courtroom. Both of them are in dress blues, and so David can see the utter loathing on Konote’s face. He has no doubt that his own expression is similar.

“At request of the defendant, today’s trial is without a jury. We will now hear from the Trial,” Judge Balakrishna says.

Konote leers at David as he stands up and walks up to the stand.

“Your Honor, on the evening of December 20th, Earth Standard Date, 2543, Camp Doveryat on the planet Kald was attacked and subsequently destroyed by the Covenant,” Konote begins. “Sergeant David Gallagher, at that time, defied my orders to fight until the command to evacuate and led his troops away from their battle stations when he was not authorized to do so. When I confronted him, he assaulted me.”

“Sergeant Gallagher was under your direct command, Staff Sergeant. Is that correct?”

“Yes, your honor.”

“When did the order to evacuate occur?”

Konote glances at his notes. “Approximately thirty minutes into the attack, at 23:14 local time.”

“And when did Sergeant Gallagher evacuate his troops?”

Konote shifts at the stand. “Your honor, he did not _evacuate_ anybody, as he was not auth--”

“I asked you a question, Staff Sergeant,” Judge Balikrishna snaps, peering down at him from above her glasses.

David fights to keep the smirk off of his face.

“Less than two minutes before the evacuation orders were issued, your honor,” Konote answers.

The judge jots something down on her datapad.

“Now, Staff Sergeant Konote, please tell me more about the assault.”

David feels his heart sink. Konote looks positively gleeful to tell this part of the story, to embellish it and make him out to be some kind of monster.

“Well, your honor,” he drawls, some of his professionalism gone from his voice. “I approached Sergeant Gallagher after confirming that the soldiers under my command were heading towards the evacuation point, to confront him for his disobedience. As his commanding officer, I was in charge of any disciplinary measures, of course,” he notes.

“Go on,” Judge Balikrishna says.

“As I was giving Sergeant Gallagher a verbal reprimand, he suddenly snapped and punched me in the face, dislodging two of my back molars and knocking me to the floor. His anger management issues,” Konote spits, sneering at David. “Could have obstructed the evacuation, leading to the loss of more military personnel.”

“That is for this court to decide, Staff Sergeant Konote,” the judge says stiffly. “Thank you for your testimony. We will now hear from the Defendant. Sergeant Gallagher, please.”

David stands up stiffly, approaching the stand as Konote vacates it. The black rage just beneath his skin would like to yank him back by his collar and finish what he started back on Kald--

But that’s what got him in this mess in the first place. And his hands are cuffed in front of him anyways.

When he reaches the stand, he glances at the datapad and finds it covered in all the notes he took while preparing for the case, from the brig. It was the only time he was allowed a datapad, or anything at all to relieve the boredom of his cell.

“Sergeant Gallagher, you have heard the testimony of your accuser. What do you have to say to these claims?”

David takes a deep breath, trying to quell his nerves. “Your honor,” he begins. “While it is true that I preemptively evacuated my squadron during the battle--”

“Can’t _evacuate_ without authorization,” Konote interrupts from his seat.

Judge Balikrishna bangs her gavel. The sharp sound cuts across the nearly empty room, amplifying its gravity. “Staff Sergeant Konote, we already heard from you,” she says, and David must be imagining the disdain in her voice.

“Apologies, your honor,” Konote mutters, glaring.

“Please continue, Sergeant,” the judge says, waving her hand at him and turning back to her datapad.

“As I was saying,” David says pointedly, shooting a look over at Konote. “It’s true that I evacuated too soon. However, the Covenant intended to glass us, and I acted in order to protect my men,” he says firmly, clenching his fists until he can feel his nails bite into the skin.

“Did you have any proof of the Covenant’s intentions, Sergeant Gallagher?” Judge Balikrishna asks, frowning slightly.

He hesitates. “No, your honor, but--”

“Do you often make judgment calls based on your intuition, Sergeant?”

“No, your honor, but--”

“Did your decision have a decisive effect on the battle?”

And there it is, the twist to the knife. “No, your honor,” he says, his heart sinking.

“So, what you’re saying,” she continues, glancing up from her note taking. “Is that you defied orders, and you have nothing to show for it?”

He stubbornly refuses to glance at Konote, even in his peripheral vision.

“That… that is correct, your honor,” he says reluctantly. “But I couldn't have known that! I acted to defend my men from what seemed like an imminent threat to their lives.”

“And you did not trust the UNSC Marine chain of command to do that?”

No, David thinks bitterly. He didn’t.

“I am accustomed to receiving a response to my questions, Sergeant Gallagher,” she says frostily.

“I acted in my men’s best interests, your honor, based on what I knew,” he says stubbornly, meeting her gaze.

Judge Balikrishna stares back, her expression calculating. Finally, she looks away to jot down more notes on the datapad.

“We heard from Staff Sergeant Konote that you physically assaulted him in response to his verbal reprimand. Is that true?”

David bristles. “Your honor, that’s an oversimplification.”

Konote scoffs from his seat. The judge gives him a sidelong glance before leaning towards David. “Do explain where I’ve… oversimplified the situation, Sergeant,” she says softly.

Something in the base of his skull pulses angrily at the condescension in her voice, hot and dangerous and too close to his brain for safety. He takes a couple of steadying breaths, trying to force the rage down and away. Showing it now will only prove what Konote is trying to say about him, will ruin everything he has worked for.

“Your honor,” he begins again, voice tight. “I am a soldier. I have been a soldier for seven years.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” she cuts in, flicking through her datapad. “I have your full record here in front of me.”

“I’ve been _verbally reprimanded_ before,” David continues. “Staff Sergeant Konote has never _verbally reprimanded_ anyone in the time that I’ve known him,” he accuses. “He goaded me, threatened me for daring to do the right thing,” he continues, allowing some of the rage to slip into his voice, a hot undercurrent.

“The right thing, Sergeant?” the judge asks, raising an eyebrow. “You defied orders from your commanding officer--”

“ _I saved my men!”_ he shouts, gritting his teeth so hard he feels sparks of pain travel up his jaw. The discomfort grounds him.

But it’s too late. The already-quiet courtroom becomes silent, even the scribe’s frantic scratch of pen against datapad stopping.

Judge Balikrishna stays silent long after the shock from his outburst has probably worn off.

“I think I’ve heard enough,” she says finally. “Sergeant Gallagher, you are clearly guilty of physical assault against a commanding officer. The rashness of this behavior suggests that your prior insubordination, no matter your intentions, was unwarranted, especially as it had no effect on the final outcome of the battle.”

David closes his eyes, his heart plummeting into his stomach.

“You will serve three months’ jail time for your crimes. Additionally, as of this moment, you are demoted back to your previous rank of corporal. You have shown that you are not truly ready for the responsibility and duties of a sergeant in the UNSC Marines.” She smooths her hand over her datapad. “This is my final judgment. You will be escorted back to your cell, where you will serve your sentence.”

She bangs her gavel and that’s the end of it.

Konote swaggers from the room, making sure to give David a satisfied leer before he passes through the door. The judge gathers her belongings and follows him. Only then do the soldiers who escorted him here return. David doesn’t protest as they guide him back to his cell, a hand on each of his shoulders.

He says nothing when they uncuff him, back at his cell, and nothing as they watch him change out of his dress blues and collect them.

He knows that if he opens his mouth, the rage he has harbored his entire life will truly consume him until there is nothing left to burn, and he is left with brittle bones and red hot anger. And that rage has already ruined his life enough.

* * *

He spends most of his sentence in complete silence. There’s something satisfying about it, about realizing that he has nothing to say and doesn’t have to pretend otherwise. There is no one to answer to, no one to command, just him and the three walls of his cell. He has no visitors, because anyone who thought kindly of him before is avoiding him. David doesn’t blame them.

So, when the guard comes to him and tells him someone has come to see him, two weeks away from the end of his sentence, it’s a shock to them both.

David is led out of his cell and into the small room used for these purposes, his hands cuffed in front of him. Sitting at the tiny table is First Sergeant Saunders.

“First Sergeant,” he greets, his voice hoarse from disuse. It does nothing to mask the surprise in his voice.

“Sergeant-- I’m sorry,” Saunders corrects, and he _sounds_ sorry, genuinely sorry about it. “Corporal Gallagher, please take a seat.”

David approaches the chair, already pulled from the table, and sits down cautiously. He finds himself unable to meet First Sergeant Saunder’s gaze.

“The jail is an interesting portion of a base, Corporal. Do you know why?” Saunders starts casually.

“No, First Sergeant,” David replies, his back rigid. “I don’t.”

“It’s because here, you are not an active soldier, even though you are enlisted. Likewise, I am not really your commanding officer. I only command soldiers who are on active duty, of course.”

David shrinks a little in his seat, unable to sort through all of the tension and shame currently swirling in his gut.

“Corporal,” Saunders continues, and he almost sounds amused. “This is not a bad thing. It means I can come to you candidly, and that you can trust me.”

David glances up. First Sergeant Saunders is sitting easily in the uncomfortable chair across from him, his hands on the table, relaxed. He doesn’t seem disappointed, angry, or even disgusted with him.

Somehow, that only makes his guilt worse.

“I’ll be frank with you, Corporal,” Saunders continues. “After this, you don’t have much of a future in the UNSC Marines. You will likely be transferred out to the front lines and despite your remarkable luck, I don’t think you will last long.”

David sighs. He had come to the same conclusion.

“I think that’s a waste of an excellent soldier.”

He looks up, shocked. “First Sergeant,” he starts, slowly. “What I did--”

“You and I both know the nature of Staff Sergeant Konote,” Saunders says evenly. “And you and I both know what happened on that terrible evening.”

David nods, dumbstuck.

“The UNSC Marines may not see your worth, but I do. There are programs who do. I’ve recommended you to one of them, and they are interested.”

David feels his mouth go dry and the air grow hot around them. “First Sergeant,” he stammers. “I--”

“--will of course, be ready to go to your interview, which takes place next month on the seventeenth. Well after your release date and before you could possibly be reassigned.”

David shoves the well of emotions that suddenly worms its way up his throat down. He can analyze that later.

“I don’t know what to say,” he says, finally. “I already owe you for so much, First Sergeant,” he continues, and he makes sure to meet Saunders’ gaze, because he has to tell him this, has to convey what this means to him.

“You’re welcome, Corporal,” Saunders says, his eyes crinkling in amusement. Like it’s that simple. “Now, I have arranged for you to have access to a datapad for the remainder of your sentence. It contains a dossier about the program. I recommend that you read it thoroughly before your interview next month.”

“Yes, First Sergeant. I will,” David says, unable to keep the gratitude out of his voice.

“Good luck, Corporal Gallagher,” Saunders says, standing gracefully. “You will do amazing things under the guidance of better men. I’m sure of it.”

David doesn’t reply, afraid his emotions will get the best of him. He’s silent as the guard escorts him back to his cell, and silent as he picks up the datapad sitting innocently on his cot.

He powers it on and opens the documents folder, staring at the single file. He takes a deep breath before tapping it with his finger and beginning to read.

He has a lot of information to absorb before his interview with Project Freelancer.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone!! I honestly have not a clue how the tagging system really works on AO3, so we'll probably be adjusting those as we go. Especially the character tags!
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you're interested in listening to me scream about Agent Washington and have absolutely no chill whatsoever, feel free to drop by [my tumblr](http://hakanakiki.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
